Hey Arnold Jungle Movie
by Inudaughter Returns
Summary: Another fan-made Hey Arnold Movie! Yes, they are making the real deal. It should be ready in two or three years from now, but hey, I enjoy this too much. So here is a pretend Hey Arnold Jungle Movie for you all to enjoy (or hate).
1. Chapter 1

For pictures to go along with this story, go to youtube

/watch?v=dr1twN-JDog&ebc=ANyPxKqrbGZqX3JL0uy_b_ZUroFfesqLsBV9cWDLIBF-ed1sUPk8WsKtJpev7QZWqDSIbp3QAOJNh5vxHqSpvih1pDpFnBsCyg

Note I had to change the text a bit so the story is not completely the same. The slideshow is a standalone while the story is meant to fit in with my other fanfics. In the fanfics, Arnold is more aware that Helga loves him and vice-versa. To best use the slide-show, pull it up in another tab in your browser and let it play until the next picture. Then read the fanfic. Fun, yes? All of these pictures are drawn by me in pencil so you aren't getting professional animation quality, believe you me. But if you want better pictures, feel free to color them in yourself or something. I did a couple colors but only a few. Thanks.

 **Hey Arnold- The Jungle Movie**

It had been three years since Arnold Shortman had found his missing father's diary. Three, restless years. In them, his legs had grown a little longer but his heart had stretched out each day toward the South American continent. It was within the jungles past San Lorenzo that his mother and father had disappeared into. It was within these intimidating wilds that his long-missed parents, along with an entire civilization of semi-mystical beings, might be found.

Arnold's mother and father had left him when he was only one year old. They had been a medical mission- a gift of mercy to a blighted native tribe. But they, along with the airplane they had taken off in, had vanished within a fog.

Most said that it was almost 100% likely that Arnold's parents had disappeared because there was a fatal crash of their bi-plane. It was only logical because the day had been so heavy with fog and the jungle's high mountains so rugged and unpredictable- a difficult obstacle in even the best of weather. Yet, Arnold Shortman held out hope because he loved the parents he did not know. So he wrote. He wrote of their adventures and the promise his father's journal held, for within it was a map. A map that might, with a lot of daring, someday lead its possessor to the lost civilizations of the Green-eyed people.

"Once upon a time, long ago there were two explorers named Stella and Miles…" Arnold began reading the essay he had submitted to the national essay writing contest four months ago. The top prize was a free field trip to anywhere in the world and Arnold hoped, with a lot of luck, to get to San Lorenzo. There was no chance he could get the opportunity to go otherwise, that was until he turned eighteen! But eighteen, Arnold felt, was way too long for him to know the truth. Was he or was he not an orphan?

With a heavy sigh, Arnold finished reading his essay for the millionth time. He only hoped it was good enough to win the contest. He tucked the plastic spiral ring notebook he had placed it in on a shelf next to his bed. Then, with a soft, sad smile, the blond-haired boy lifted up a photo of his parents from another shelf. It was a picture of his parents smiling and posing in front of an ancient pyramid. Possibly, it was even the same excavation site where his parents had first met. His parents had been explorers- before his parents brought him to live with Grandpa and Grandma.

Arnold loved his Grandpa and Grandpa. He was glad he lived with them. Yet, sorrow soaked through his being just the same. Especially on this morning. Grandpa noticed it at the breakfast table as Arnold at down. "Hi, Grandpa. Good morning."

"You are awake early today, Shortman," Grandpa Phil mumbled. "Something bothering you?"

"No not really," Arnold replied trying to turn his frown into a cheerful smile. "I'm just thinking about my entry for the nationwide essay contest. I know it's unlikely, but I'd be really nice if I won. Then I'd get the top-prize."

"Oo, prizes are nice," said Grandpa. "Let's hope it's a sack of money."

"Grandpa!" Arnold scolded. But Phil ignored his rebuke. He had meant every word.

"Ooh, Arnold don't forget!" Phil recalled with sudden inspiration. "First of the month tomorrow. Don't forget to collect the rent tomorrow! This is a boarding house after all. Utilities don't come free you know."

"I know, Grandpa," said Arnold rolling his eyes. Arnold was annoyed, but it was relaxing to have Grandpa laughing all the same. Arnold was smiling again when his Grandma entered the dining room with a plate of bacon and eggs for breakfast.

"Oh hello there Kimba!" said Grandma Pookie. She was wearing her explorer's hat again, so Arnold knew she would be hunting for flies the rest of the morning. "Today's a big day for the expedition so would you be a dear and go get us some supplies? I left a list on the refrigerator."

"Yes, Grandma," said Arnold. He could hear his pet pig, Abner squealing under the table. So he stopped to reach under it to pet Abner. His favorite pet pig came and and stood up on two feet for a good rub between his ears before dropping down on all fours again and running away. As Arnold watched, Abner found one of the boarding house cats to chase. They two animals pulled down the tablecloth and eggs spilt all over poor Arnold's lap.

But this was a typical morning for Arnold Shortman. He was happy with this life, overall. He only wanted his parents to come home and be part of it, too. Yet Arnold knew that when he stepped out the house, his best friend Gerald and his secret crush, Helga, would be waiting out there in the neighborhood along with a lot of kids who were his friends.

Arnold hummed to himself. It was not an unpleasant task to go to buy groceries on a warm and sunny summer day. Aber was sleeping on the stoop. Helga, the strong-willed blond who had once admitted to adoring him, was skipping rope out on the street. Arnold smiled and waved at her. It was good to know she still adored him. It had been three years since she had last kissed and embraced him. Three years since she had confessed to love him at the top of FTI. Since then, she and Arnold had become the best of friends. But they both changed the conversation when things got mushy.

The local corner store was not far away at all, and within a half hour, Arnold was back again to say good morning to Helga. By now, a few of Arnold's other friends congregated on his street to plan a day. Helga and Harold and even Gerald were there.

"Hey, Arnold!" said Gerald. "You wanna go to the Arcade at one today? I'm going to listen to Phoebe's Cello practice, this morning. So we'll meet you all after lunch!" Arnold lifted his eyebrow. Gerald was sure keen on Phoebe these days.

"Yeah, be there and don't be late!" Helga voiced loudly. She jabbed a finger toward Arnold's chest for emphasis but he was used to such treatment. Arnold shook off Helga's enthusiasm with a smile.

"Sure, Gerald," he replied with a weaker thumb shake than usual. He was trying not to drop his sack of groceries after all! Arnold opened the front door holding his groceries only to get run over by pets (including a fat, white chicken).

There was a lot of time left before Arnold was supposed to meet up with his friends. After a bit of dusting top shelves for Grandma and a brief snack of jam sandwiches, Arnold paused to take a shower. He ran a comb through his brilliantly yellow hair and let it air-dry into unruly corn licks. Then he blow-dried his hat.

When Arnold exited the bathroom from his shower, he saw his Grandma standing in the hall with a notepad and pencil. "Oh Kimba. I took down a message for you! Let's see. Your teacher called about the meaning of hipatamuth. Or was that a country in west Africa? "Oh well, never mind. He has something to tell you when you see him," she says patting his hand.

Arnold Shortman made his way slowly up to his room on the third floor of Sunset Arms Boarding House. Inside, his room was The phone rang again when Arnold got to his room. He jumped for it.

"Hello?" the voice on the end of the line said. "Arnold! Congratulations! You've won the essay contest!" It was his teacher's, Mr. Simmons, voice. "You know what that means! Free airline tickets for our entire class! I just wanted to let you know how very proud I am of you for being uniquely you. I think it's special that you wrote an essay on a topic topic that is special to uniquely you."

"Thank you Mr. Simmons."

"Do you have a place where you especially want to go? The top prize is a field-trip to anywhere for the entire class."

"Definitely," said Arnold. He explained that he had his heart set on going to San Lorenzo. Ecstatic with joy, Arnold ran out of his house and down his front steps to find his nearest friends. None met his eyes. They had probably had gone ahead to the Arcade without him. If he did not hurry, Arnold guessed, they would put their money together to buy pizza, too, and Harold would consume all of it.

Arnold rounded a corner a half block away from the Arcade only to run into something soft and pink. Inevitably, it was Helga. Only now, these days, there was a budding maturity about her. At twelve, Helga was wearing her first bras. Her limbs had grown longer and leaner and her eyes less cruel and more like a vivid ocean. This time, as Arnold lay strewn across her chest from where he he tumbled, his flickering eyes met hers and he found it hard to sit up. Instead, his eyes lingered on Helga's red lips.

"Hey! Get off!" Helga snarled, her dark, black unibrow folding downwards as a scowl spread across her face. Her hand reached out and shoved against Arnold's chest, sending him backward. Arnold caught his ribs. The force of Helga's strength was equal to an Olympian's.

"Oh! Sorry, Helga!" Arnold mumbled rubbing where Helga had struck his chest. He winced a little. But he held out his hand toward Helga all the same to lift her off the ground.

"What were you staring at, Football-Head?" Helga snarled. In return, Arnold blushed and mumbled.

"I'm sorry. It's just that you looked… you looked….so?"

"So what?" Helga demanded with almost quivering in rage. Arnold did not know whether or not it was best to be honest or truthful. Either way, he might get his head beat in.

"Beautiful," his lips said in a quiet whisper, too soft for anyone to hear had they been any more steps away than Helga was from him. It was their secret- shared- that Helga had feelings for him. It was their secret shared that he knew. But for whatever reason, Helga had backed away from her announcement of love for him. In an unspoken truce, Arnold forbade himself from replying, for if they did they might blend the uneasy line between them. The line between lover and friend. Both teetered on the precipice.

With a loud, "humph," Helga righted herself and snatched her hand away from Arnold's. Both of them felt the cold immediately but this was the game they played. They both were drawn to press their fingers toward the fire to test it, but then by pride they snatched it away. It was almost as steady as the rising and waning of the sun. It was driving Arnold crazy. Things became worse for him when with a loud chortle, Harold appeared sipping a large soda from a paper cup.

"Why don't you take a picture?" Sid asked jabbing an elbow into Harold's ribs. "It'll last longer!" At this, Helga gave her pigtail an angry flip. Silently, she stomped away from the direction of the Arcade with its pizza parlor. Arnold's heart sank. Fortunately, his friend Gerald was seated inside to cheer him up a bit.

"You won the essay contest?!" Sid cried with his hand flat against the restaurant table as Arnold smugly told his friends about his most recent achievement. Sid clutched stinky's shirt front out of excitement. "That means… that means!"

"Yep," Arnold said sipping Yahoo soda smugly. "We are going to San Lorenzo!" After all, his friends Gerald, Stinky, Sid, Harold, and even Helga were all in his class.

But when he explained to his Grandparents the next day that he and his fellow schoolmates were able to go on a field trip abroad, they were not very happy about it.

"Hm. I don't know Shortman," said Grandpa. "I'm not too keen on the idea myself."

"Oh come on, Grandpa," said Arnold, shocked. He had wanted his grandparents to be happy for him! "Why not?"

"Well I know it's important to you to go to San Lorenzo and all," said Grandpa. "But personally I'd rather you steered clear of it. I mean that place is a mess of bad memories.

"Oh come on, Grandpa!" Arnold argued, his hands outstretched in a frustrated plea. "It might be my only chance to find out about my parents!"

"Maybe it is, maybe it isn't Arnold," said Grandpa. "But I still can't cotton to you going. The last time someone I really cared about went to San Lorenzo, they went missing. I lost my son there. I would rather I didn't lose a grandson."

"I'll choose a different place then," said Arnold with guilt. But his heart was anguished.

His mind began to plot. Arnold did not call Mr. Simmons back, after all, to change the city of the field trip. He made a fake field trip permission slip instead and forged his Grandpa's name on the real one. Arnold felt badly, so badly that soon, he told his best friend Gerald the secret of what he had done.

The two boys were walking back home from Gerald's field at the time. There had been a brief baseball game between Arnold and all his friends. Arnold carried his bat over his shoulder, while Gerald had his baseball glove on. He practiced catching by hitting his fist into the leather glove over and over to simulate a ball striking it.

"Um, um, hm." Gerald said shaking his head at his friend. "I can't believe you're lying to your grandpa about this. You told him we were going to a resort and not San Lorenzo?"

"Gerald, I have to do this," pleaded Arnold. "I have to find out what happened to my parents."

"Sure thing. Anything you say, Arnold. But ya know there's no guarantee that even if you go there you'll ever find your parents. I hate to say it man, but it could be that their plane just… well crashed. I'm sorry man."

"Even if that's true, I want to know Gerald!" Arnold declared stubbornly. He looked around.

"By the way, Gerald, have you seen Helga?"

"No, man. She didn't show up for the game again. Is there something strange going on between the two of you? You two have been acting funny ever since FTI."

"It's nothing Gerald," said Arnold, his eyes narrowing. "We're just having another little tiff."

"You and her are always having another tiff!" Gerald scoffed. "Well, see you later, man. I'm goin' home." Gerald stalked off toward his house leaving Arnold behind at the stoop to his front door. But Arnold did not go into his house. Instead, he left his bat just inside the door and walked out again.

Helga had become Arnold's biggest problem. As long as Helga wanted to pretend that she was disinterested in him, he couldn't just grab her and kiss her lips, as tempting as that might be- for Helga was rapidly growing up into a beauty. The two were at an impass. Helga followed Arnold around day and night and Arnold looked back over his shoulder every once in while to check that the one whom fate had tied him to so expertly still wanted him. Yet Helga had been away for two whole days, now. The vacancy was making Arnold anxious.

It was a short bus trip over to Helga's neighborhood. Her family owned a multi-storied home along one of the wealthier streets. Arnold walked up to Helga's front door. He rung the familiar doorbell and waited. It was a mild surprise to him that Olga Pataki, Helga's older sister answered. The difference in height between the two sisters had been becoming more indistinguishable with time. Arnold guessed it would be not long before Helga was taller than Olga.

"Hello, is Helga here?" Arnold asked hopefully. Olga Pataki held a finger up to her lips and pursed them in thought. Wile she formulated her reply, she rounded her lips into a loud, "tsk."

"Nope. I haven't, Sweetie. Sorry! Don't you worry now, Arnold. When Helga comes home, I'll tell you to give you a call! Would you like that?"

"Yeah. Sure," replied Arnold. He smiled, although he doubted Helga would listen to his sister.

"If you see Helga, tell her I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make her uncomfortable."

"Well, you just wait and I'll tell her all about it, you big silly!" said Olga pinching one of Arnold's cheeks. Her arbitrating between their little tiffs was almost becoming predictable. Olga gave Arnold a knowing wink.

"Don't you worry, your little head! Olga will take care of everything!" Helga's older sister promised. Arnold unhappily rubbed the cheek Olga had nearly bruised as she had pinched it Then he turned to go home before Olga had the chance to attack him again.

As Arnold walked back down his own street, Helga peeked out from her favorite hiding spot on the roof of Green Meats. It was here that she had her best target practice and here that she had the best view of Arnold's house. Seeing Arnold's face so dejected as he paced by made Helga look at her locket with a picture of Arnold in it sadly.

"Oh, my dearest, onliest, most holiest of beloveds! How it pains me to bear this separation from your noble presence! But, alack! How can I refrain myself from your tender lips? Your rapturous, tumultuous locks of hair? With you so near to me, I can not tear myself away from your delicious body odor and unkempt clothes! I love you, my beloved! So much so I must hide myself away lest my passions take me to wilder places than we dare to go and you, my beloved, hate me for this blasted, bestial, carnal nature of mine!" Helga's hands fisted up into the air and her eyes were large with agony as she spoke. But after a great deal of time, she came to composure. After all, Arnold had gone back into his house. But the next day, Helga could not stand here feeling sorry for herself any longer. She just had to talk to her only other comfort in the world- her best friend Phoebe.

It was bright and sunny summer morning in Hillwood. Lila and Phoebe were walking up the street toward Phoebe's lavish, modern home as Helga got there. Helga's presence was a surprise to them. It was as if the girl lept out of the shadows to encounter them. Both Phoebe and Lila turned to look at one another. Both held the impression in the back of their mind that Helga was acting less and less like a normal girl these days and more like a spy in training.

"Um, Helga. What a surprise!" Phoebe Heyerdahl declared pretending that nothing about Helga's behavior was out of the ordinary.

"Yeah, I'm just full of surprises, Phoebes." Helga rolled her eyes at her long-time friend.

"Ugn, Helga you've been spending a lot of time over at my house lately. Any reason?" Phoebe probed. But Helga was not about to give up any juicy details. Instead she gave a loud sniff.

"No reason," says Helga hastily. "Why would there be a reason? That's ridiculous."

"If you say so Helga," said Phoebe, narrowing avoiding saying what she was thinking. 'There's no need to be so defensive!' After all, they were best friends, weren't they?

It was fortunate for Phoebe that the field trip to San Lorenzo was nearly upon them. It was only a couple days ahead in the future, and to celebrate it, Phoebe's boyfriend Gerald was here with Arnold to chat about it. Phoebe watched Gerald and his best friend Arnold approach with warm anticipation. Helga held her ground on the sidewalk. She did not run, but she did not look pleased to see Arnold, either. She crossed her arms and pouted at the boy instead.

"Hey, ladies," says Gerald. "Are you all packed and ready for our once-in-a-lifetime, all-expenses paid vacation?"

"Oh! Yes I think so," says Phoebe blushing. "And Arnold," she noted after. "I haven't seen you for some time. All is well with you I expect?"

"Yeah, fine," said Arnold exchanging a look with Helga. It was a look of yearning. A plea for forgiveness. Helga blushed and her eyes shifted away.

Arnold's hope that things would go back to normal between him and Helga were crushed. He went home and sat at his kitchen table looking unhappy. Finally, Arnold got up and made a phone call to Helga's house. But she didn't answer. "Helga? Helga? It's me," says Arnold. He makes a deep sigh. "Look, we need to talk. Please?" But there was still no answer. Likely, Helga was listening to the recording but refusing to pick up. Again.

Stubborn, Arnold waited beside the phone with his arms and leg crossed for a call back. When none came in ten minutes, he went to sit down at the kitchen table again. At last something good happened for the blond-haired boy. Arnold's Grandpa came into the kitchen.

"Something wrong, Shortman?" Grandpa asked. Arnold gave a deep sigh before answering.

"Yeah, Grandpa. There is. You know my friend with the one eyebrow? Well it's her. I think she's avoiding me. We had words and well… I don't know if she wants to be friends anymore. She hasn't spoken to me for days."

"Why? What ever did you do to make her so mad?"

"It's not what I said, Grandpa. It's what I can't say. I mean… she likes me, likes me and I can't answer her back. There's a wall between us and I'm still not sure just how I feel. I mean this is a girl who torments me on purpose. She's combative and argumentative but sometimes she acts really nice and I… like her then. She's.. I don't know.. beautiful I guess in her own way."

"Well, then just tell her what you told me," said Grandpa.

"I can't, Grandpa," said Arnold moodily. "She's not talking to me anymore."

"Well then, trick her into meeting you with some her school friends," says Grandpa. "Or we can drive down there right now and throw rocks at her window. It's great fun and a classic. The girl must be asleep by now."

"Grandpa, it's only 6:30."

"Great. Suppertime. Keep trying, Shortman. Call her again. And after summer there's always school. There's no way she'll be able to avoid you then." This brought another sigh from Arnold.

"Okay, Grandpa," he said, sounding defeated.

It wasn't as if Arnold hadn't tried to get Helga to like him openly during the last year. He had written her a poem once- an invitation and a promise. He had just called her beautiful. It was too bad that such things only served to drive Helga further away from Arnold. The time had he had tried to carry her books after he had beaned her in fourth grade came to mind, too, and the Tango they had shared. If it had been any other girl Helga would have just melted. She would have gone along with his suggestions and let him pose her anyway Arnold liked. But no, this was Helga they were talking about. As soon as Arnold seemed to be getting nearer to her, she surprised him by whirling outside of his grasp. It was like the time Helga had played Cecil. Arnold knew it was her from the moment Biosquare had flooded and she had been dripping wet with water from head to toe- her long hair over her face just like his fake French date. But Helga had proven inside of Biosquare also that she was a hellcat, too, and not so sweet as he had presumed. It was his secret that he knew and as Helga had continued being cruel to him over time, Arnold had assumed they would always be just friends and no more.

But then, FTI had happened. Arnold's eyes had been opened. Helga was cruel to hide her lust. That meant that every measure of cruelty matched her longing for him. His slowly kindling feelings of attraction were not a lost cause, and now that he was twelve, his own attraction for the girl were becoming unbearable.

Dismal, Arnold walked upstairs to lay down on his bed and look up at the clouds. It was his habit to do so whenever he was blue. His wandering mind eventually drifted off to sleep.

Two days later, and Arnold's homemade alarm clock rang. Arnold hurried to collect tickets and a suitcase from his desk. He ran downstairs for a quick breakfast of cereal, then ran outside his front door. Gerald was there, waiting for him.

"Hurry up, man!" said Gerald. "The bus is leaving soon! We gotta make our plane!"

"After we all meet up at school first," Arnold corrected Gerald. As he said, the two friends got off at the school where Mr. Simmons was counting hands in a panic.

"Oh, good," Mr. Simmons said scribbling on a list. "Arnold and Gerald. That means everyone but one student is here."

"And me!" said Principal Wartz with a straw hat, flippers, and an animal pool floaty.

"The Principal is going, too?" asked Gerald. "What for?!"

"I guess he just wanted to," Arnold speculated.

"Hm, hm, hm. With principal Wartz here this class trip is going to be a lot less fun than I thought," Gerald declared. Arnold looked around for Helga. He stared at the girl when he found her. When Helga did not bolt or threaten him, he moved forward cautiously.

"Helga, hi." Arnold addressed her nervously.

"What do you want, Arnold?" Helga asked stiffly, her arms crossed.

"Well, this is a really nice field trip we're going on? Isn't it?" Arnold said with a forced smile. He wished they could let this facade of platonic friendship slide. It was wearing both of them. If he stood here any longer he might snap and take Helga into his arms.

"If you say so, Arnoldo," says Helga feigning disinterest. "Now why don't you go and hang out with your friend, Geraldo?" she says waving him off.

"Sheesh man," says Gerald as they walk away. "That girl just does not like you."

"She doesn't hate me, Gerald," Arnold says with certainty. He pulled at his collar to loosen it a little. Being so near to Helga at the moment had done something funny to his breathing. "She.. well… she just has a funny way of hiding things."

Eugene was the last student to show up. He arrived with a clatter of cans from a tipped over trash can. Most of the students gasped. Eugene was a well-known jinx and suddenly the idea of going on field trip was not fun. It was fatal.

"Oh-no. I am not getting on a plane with Eugene!" Said Rhonda. "I'd like to make my graduation party."

"You said it," agreed Helga.

"Um-hum," muttered Gerald giving a searching look to Arnold. "Uh oh. Eugene's here. Didn't we give him the wrong ticket on purpose?"

"You mean you gave him the wrong ticket."

"Arnold, that kid's a jinx," shouted Gerald. "If we board a plane with him, we're going to go down in flames for certain!"

"Oh, come on, Gerald," says Arnold. "That's just plain superstitious. Still, maybe..." His mind wandered back to all the bad things that happened when Eugene was around and Arnold grew nervous. What if Gerald was right?

"Don't worry about it Arnold," says Sid in a not so kind way. "Harold, Stinky, and I have a back-up plan just in case he showed up. Eugene will never know what's coming."

"Um, I don't know if that's such a good idea, Sid!" Arnold disagreed. Whatever it was the trio had planned, it likely meant Eugene would be in a body-cast again.

"Hey Eugene!" shouted Harold as Arnold and Gerald watched. "Hold onto this luggage for me for a moment. You know, while I tie my shoe."

"Oh. Sure, okay guys," Eugene said amiably. But Curly was in on the plot. He backed up into Eugene and bumped him onto the unusually large suitcase with wheels.

"Uh, guys," says Eugene as he coasted out of schoolyard and down across street through obstacles and eventually into an open manhole.

"Harold!" My clothes!" Rhonda shouted the the boys, angrily. Her face scrunched up with rage.

"Sorry Rhonda," Harold, Stinky, and Sid chorused while Curly watched.

"Oh well," said Rhonda. "I still have two other whole suitcases with me. It should be enough to get me through our brief vacation."

"Well, Arnold," said Gerald with hands on hips and the realism look. "Our problem solved. Looks like that kid's going to going to a hospital instead."

Both breathed a sigh of relief. Now that Eugene was gone, it was a pleasure to get on an airplane. Gerald and Arnold were enjoying themselves listening to music when they heard, "Hi guys!" Both boys were startled. It seemed the boy was not in a body-cast after all.

"Eugene, how did you get here?" asked Arnold, pulling the earphones off his head.

"Oh, well, I missed my first flight but the airport was very nice and sent me to meet up at that last stop. I just got on and boy, it's great to meet up with you all again. This is going to be a great field trip, I can tell," said Eugene. At that moment the plane engine bursted into flames. They were forced to land.

"I told you man," said Gerald fanning himself as they stumbled away from the airport runway. They watched as firefighters extinguished the last of the engine's flames. "That kid is a sure-fired jinx. We're lucky we're not all dead!"

"Gerald," Arnold rebuked wearily. But Gerald had been correct to a point. The plane had got them over the ocean but they ended up taking a bus to San Lorenzo.

"I told you Gerald," said Arnold feeling better as they neared their final destination. "Nothing is going to stop me from finding my parents. As long as I have this journal!" he said holding it up. Helga stopped what she was doing (making a cat's cradle) and stared at it.

"His parents?" she blurted out looking at her locket. "Arnold is here to find his parents? Oh, my football-headed love god, if by some weird miracle you actually do manage to be reunited with your parents then you are likely to stay with your parents here in San Lorenzo and you and I are to be parted forever! I must see that journal!" Helga sunk down low into her seat. Meanwhile, Gerald continued talking to Arnold.

"Look man, you've showed me that journal a million times, man. I'm just saying, as your friend, don't get your hopes too up. I'm worried about you, buddy."

"I'm fine Gerald," said Arnold. "Everything is going to turn out great. You'll see." He looked out the bus window. Arnold pointed out San Lorenzo. "There it is!" Arnold shouted, excitedly. "San Lorenzo!"


	2. Chapter 2

The horizon Arnold had been dreaming of for three long years was upon them. The bus rolled cleanly toward their destination. The outer buildings, bridges, and highways of a city began to appear all around them. Arnold pointed out the bus window toward a distant skyline. "There it is!" Arnold shouted excitedly. "San Lorenzo!"

"See guys?" said Eugene appearing beside his friends in the bus aisle. "I knew we could make it! All we had to do was to stay optimistic." Eugene's words were as ill-fated as they always were. One of the wheels on the bus they were riding chose that exact moment to blow, shredding into confectionary pieces of rubber. The metal hub left behind grated against the ground and the bus slid. Many of the students began screaming. All grabbed onto whatever they could or kneeled and huddled. Eugene, standing in the aisle, was sent sliding forward to the front of the bus and got stuck under the dashboard. Fortunately, the bus had already ceased moving by then. The bus driver had killed the engine. Gerald gave Arnold the I-told-you-so look. Arnold acknowledged his friend had been right with a silent frown.

It was a few hours in coming, but they did manage to arrange for a new transport. Eugene was taken away to the local hospital separately to do something about the scratches he had accumulated. So with much fanfare and ease the remaining students piled aboard their new bus and watched the city of San Lorenzo as it rolled by. Much like any other modern city, it was filled with cars and traffic and people hurrying here and there. Someone had dedicated a main street to be its central hub. Not all of the buildings were South American in nature. Modern skyscrapers dominated the sky beside a gray, choppy ocean and against a backdrop of lush, green mountain peaks. Inside the city, Roman Catholic churches mixed with modern streets and a soccer stadium. It seemed unlikely that Arnold would find any of the mythical Green-Eyed People there. Yet, his nose remained pressed against the glass of the bus window just the same, as if by squinting he would find someone mythological.

After a small space of time, their new bus rolled tidily up to a white marble palace. A giant, cascading fountain posed up front to invite tourists in and they could see people dining along a restaurant patio. The hotel they had all come to was an unusual luxury for kids from Hillwood- all except Miss Rhonda Lyod that is. She had gone on expensive vacations with her family before.

But regarding Gerald and Arnold, their mouths rounded open in awe as they saw the hotel. It was more elaborate than the theatre house they had attended during field school trips. It was broader than the Public Aquarium in Hillwood. Lush palm trees swayed inside pots and in neat rows beside hedges. The tile stones under their feet were perfect- no cracks or uneven surface to mar the appearance of a pristine courtyard.

Arnold swiveled his bushy head around. It was almost too much for him to take in without wearing his tux. Arnold was glad he had packed it now, although he doubted he'd need it at first. But now, at this place, he doubted he could order scrambled eggs for breakfast without it.

"Come on, come on people!" Mr. Simmons shouted. He waved the students along to walk as fast as they were able. They needed to check in at the front desk and get into their rooms. "Isn't it nice that the mayor put in an educational grant for our field trip, hm?" said Mr. Simmons. Arnold rolled his eyes. He knew that it was probable that the mayor had given his school that check for fancy hotel rooms for P.R. (public relations) reasons. He had been forced to take photos with with the mayor and him holding the check in Mr. Wartz's office. The photo had gone into Hillwood's newspaper.

Arnold passed by the fountain at the hotel and stepped onto a crimson carpet so deep his feet almost sank into the floor. Potted plants were set every three feet along the wall. At a desk made of polished brass, a man in a tuxedo and a round cap greeted Mr. Simmons. Arnold peered over the desk in curiousity. There were all sorts of keys and some cards. But there was a modern computer, too. On a podium was a voluntary, guest logbook with a brown leather cover. Arnold signed his full name in it with a brass covered ink pen.

Arnold slid down from the desk. He waited in line with the other students for his room key which Mr. Simmons handed to him.

"Now, remember, Arnold!" Mr. Simmons said kneeling before the blond-haired boy. "You and Gerald have to share it. Try not to lose your key. If you get separated, find someone else from our group and stay with them until I can locate your 'Buddy'. Alright?"

"Yes, Mr. Simmons," Arnold and Gerald chorused. They knew how the 'Buddy System' worked.

"Ninety-eight. Ninety-nine," said Gerald counting room doors. "One hundred! Gimme that key!" Gerald said as he snatched it from Arnold's hand. The door swung open toward the luxury within.

"Man oh man, Arnold," Gerald shouted before sitting back on a luxurious full bed. "This vacation is going to be good! Wanna go down to the hotel pool and suntan a little?" But Arnold frowned. He looked at a watch fixed to his wrist.

"Not now Gerald. I've got to make a call," he said searching for the phone. He found it on a table between the hotel's two full beds. Arnold pulled a scrap of paper from his pocket and followed the directions on it.

"Hello, hello? It's Arnold," he said after a few rings. "Arnold Shortman. I'm calling to let you know I'm in town and I'm looking forward to our meeting tomorrow. Tonight? Yes, that works for me. Okay, meet you later. Thanks, yes."

"And who was that?!" says Gerald sitting up and looking angrily suspicious. "You're up to something again, aren't you man?"

"It's nothing, Gerald," Arnold declared. "I talked to a man at the embassy and he says there's someone he'd like to introduce me to. Someone who knows the jungle and might be able read my map."

"Map? Map what map?" said Gerald.

"The map at the end of my father's journal. If I look for the green-eyed people, I'm sure I'll be able to find them."

"Arnold, that's crazy talk. A twelve-year old boy running off into the jungle alone? Why don't you put an ad in the paper or something and enjoy the vacation… Well if you're going off to dinner, I'll be in the pool, man. Later, man." Gerald opened his suitcase.

"Well, have fun Gerald," said Arnold giving his best bud a thumbshake as Gerald headed out toward the pool. Arnold stayed in the room. He was going to dress up for his dinner appointment.

Arnold put on the tux he had packed. For the occasion, he even brushed his hair a little. After studying himself in the long, silvery closet mirror, Arnold decided he was ready to go. He opened the door to his room. But little did he suspect that Helga G. Pataki was lurking in the hallway. She had come to get a 'glimpse' of the journal she had heard so much about on the bus.

A particularly large potted plant proved to be a worthy hiding place for Helga. It was much more difficult for her now that she was no longer nine years old and not so small, but she managed it all the same, drawing her arms and legs in and wrapping them around her. Helga heard the footfalls of Arnold and the swinging of his door. It was time to put her plan into action. Pulling out her trusty 'golden' slingshot, Helga slingshot a vase down hall. It split into two with a mighty, 'crack.' As Arnold spun his head toward the ruined urn, Helga dashed by him into the open room doorway. Helga dove into the closet beside the door and made herself small on the floor. She waited, her breath held, to be discovered. But Arnold had not seen her dash by him. After puzzling over the broken plant urn down the hall, he locked the door with his key. Helga listened to the clicking sound of the lock to the room she was now in and smiled. She had done it. She was in Arnold's hotel room. But now she had to find that journal!

Helga looked around the vacant room. The bed had not been slept in and the only indication anyone had even been here at all was a small indentation at the foot of one of the beds. A blue duffle bag proved to be Gerald's. Arnold's usual suitcase was an old fashioned one but this time around, he had also brought with him a tiny duffelbag which had never left his shoulder during the plane ride. Helga guessed correctly that this was the place the journal would be, for only socks and a few squarish objects shifted within. Helga dragged the bag out to the bed Gerald had been sitting on. She began to unzipper the duffle but then heard a sound above and beyond what she expected to hear. It was a soft scuffle and fearful, Helga rolled away under the bed.

What Helga had expected least as she peered out from beneath a valence of lace, were feet belonging to a true intruder. A stranger. Helga held her hands over her mouth. The stranger moved toward the room's balcony and vanished out the open doorway. Moments before he did so, Helga noted an object held tight in his hand. It was Arnold's father's journal. Her dark eyebrows grew more dark and severe.

"Oh no, you don't buddy. If you think you're going to steal from by beloved, you've got another thing coming!" Helga muttered to herself. Outrage had replaced her fear. She rushed out to the balcony the man had come from. There was a dangling rope leading up towards a similar, balconied room on the floor above. The intruder had already climbed up the rope to the higher balcony by the time Helga emerged to see him. But a car waited out on the street below and the stranger's gaze lingered on it a moment before he pulled the trenchcoat he was wearing up around his neck.

"Ah-ha!" mumbled Helga. It was a good thing Helga had taken some ballet and gymnastics. She flipped nimbly down onto a balcony one floor down, not up. The petunias in the pot she landed on were totaled, but that was no grief to her. Instead, Helga repeated her performance again until she could make it down near to the street level. At this point, she was forced to rush through one of the rooms with its startled occupants, but soon Helga was able to make it out onto the street. The thief whom had pocketed Arnold's journal had not yet reached his car. But there was a driver waiting. Helga watched as the thief climbed into the car.

But they were deep in the downtown. Helga had no fear of highways-yet- so as she jogged after the turning car, she was satisfied to see that it was immediately held up by a traffic light. There were an abundance of cars in San Lorenzo traveling in the same direction, so Helga took hold of a generous-sized bike rack. One traffic light down, she switched to a roof rack on top of an old station wagon so that she could keep view of her quarry.

It was by some miracle that Helga's ride paused at a traffic light near to where the thief's car turned off. Helga jogged down the road, growing more apprehensive for her foolish venture by the minute. Not only was she living dangerously by chasing criminals, but she had lost sight of the thief. But then as she passed by a grimy window, Helga spotted the thief in a dank and dirty restaurant. She pressed her nose against the glass. There was not just one man sitting at the table. There were two- the thief and his driver. The journal lay out on the surface of the restaurant table before them. The two seemed to be examining a map. Beside it were two strangely-shaped pendants on leather neck-straps. The most bizarre thing about the whole event, is that while the two men moved the amulets around the map, they seemed to be glowing. Green. They were fluorescent green!

Curiosity helped to drive Helga's fear away again and so she fumbled her way down an alley and in through a backdoor to the restaurant. Someone was washing dishes at the sink so loudly they did not notice Helga as she passed. Grabbing a tablecloth to throw over herself, Helga pretended to be a moving table. The last thing she wanted the strangers to see was...well, her!

But how to steal the book? And the two pendants if she could manage it? Helga tapped her chin in thought. Her cunning mind spun. She had to swap the two objects with replacement ones so that it gave her a few moments to run. Helga scurried back into the kitchen to seize whatever her eyes could lay upon. That was a phone book and two lemons. The man washing dishes looked up just in time to see her stumble back toward the restaurant's dining room.

Now she had to get under the table without them seeing! That took nerve from Helga! But the two men were so engrossed in their discussion they did not see a tablecloth drifting towards their table. She paused to listen to their conversation.

"You know La Sombre said these necklaces will lead us to the Shortmans," said one of the thugs tapping his foot. "I think the pendant is glowing on the map."

"Well, I think," said the other, "the pendant is reacting to the whole journal! You know it was written by… him. It's his amulet, it's his journal... Miles Shortman was affected by all sorts of voodoo-hocus-pocus magic. So maybe some of the magic got into the journal, too."

"That's what I'm trying to tell you, fishbreath!" said his compatriot bending him down to examine the map again. "The treasure and the Green-Eyes are one and the same. We find the Green-Eyes, La Sombre gets their treasure. We'll all be rich! Now look, if I set the pendant on the edge of the map, no glow. If I set it in the center, it glows!" His companion shrugged.

"It's magnetic?"

The two rambled on before deciding on a river as a place to look for, whatever it was they were looking for. Helga did not like the name she had heard. Shortman? That was the very same last name as Arnold's! Helga had seen Arnold write out his last name today! Her love had used it to sign into the hotel logbook! Maybe these men knew something about Arnold's missing parents! But Helga did not want to end up missing, too. She had to steal the journal and fast!

A waitress approached with a water pitcher and a menu. Helga snatched the journal, leaving the phonebook in its place. Then, with one great, dramatic heave, she stood up and tipped the table she was under onto its side. She crouched and was shielded from view on the the other side of it. The two men and the waitress stared down at the two lemons that sat on the ground beside the overturned table.

The pendants bounced and rolled across the room. Helga gave up on retrieving them. They were too far out of reach. She made for the restaurant door. But by some creepy miracle, the two amulets dragged themselves along the floor after the table had been overturned. They followed after Helga like two admiring snakes. When Helga paused for a mere moment to look down at the journal in her hand they were there attached to the back cover of it by some invisible glue.

"Huh?" said Helga staring down at the two pendants she did not remember taking. But they were with her all the same and so she pocketed them as she bolted down the street. She dove in and out of shops in San Lorenzo until she could safely retrace her steps to the hotel. Just to be on the safe side, Helga called a cab wearing sunglasses from a dress shop three doors down. She left with a large, paper shopping bag and a new pair of shoes. Inside her paper shopping bag, folded inside a blue gown, were the two amulets and one very special journal.

Helga gave out a deep sigh of relief when her cab rolled up to the hotel. She had the jitter and shakes but she slapped herself, hard, and held her precious bag up to her chest. Helga marched into the hotel room. She would tell Phoebe all about her adventure soon. There was something she had to do first. She had to return Arnold's father's journal to him.

But Arnold Shortman was not in his room at the moment. When Helga had snuck into his room, he was about to go to dinner. He had a meeting with someone from the embassy of Argentina. It was a cleric with a minor post, but he was in charge of records belonging to persons with expired visas like the Shortmans. Arnold's missing parents were a case file he had closed as "missing" five years ago. He had felt sorry for Arnold, and so out of sentiment he had looked around San Lorenzo for someone who could help him read the map in his father's journal. It was this 'aid' that Arnold was destined to meet tonight. Arnold made his way down to the hotel's overpriced restaurant.

"A table for three, in the name of Arnold Shortman?" he asked the maitre d'. She looked down at him from her fancy wooden podium.

"Hm. Why yes, YOUNG man," she said stressing the word young quite a bit. Arnold's age had been quite unexpected to her. But she did her job as maitre d' and led Arnold toward a table in the rear of the restaurant. There, a short, chubby man in a white suit and a friendly face greeted Arnold with a handshake.

"So, you must be Arnold, eh? Good to finally meet you in person."

"Yes, sir. I'm Arnold Shortman. Thanks for meeting me."

"I am glad to be able to do something for you, young man," said the cleric, "considering your tragic circumstances. There is not much I can do or you, personally. Your parent's case file was, as I have explained, closed years ago! But Mr. Padro Goldman, here," said the friendly man in a white suit gesturing toward a second, taller figure in a black suit, "might be able to do something to guide you towards an answer." Arnold looked up swiftly. A tall, black-haired man in a newly pressed suit stepped out of the restaurant's deepest shadows. He was an intimidating figure- burly, muscled, sun-tanned, with a fierce scowl and a scar on his face. Arnold felt a little intimidated, but he held out his hand for a handshake, anyway.

"Thank you for coming," Arnold said politely. "Mr. Wardman said you might be able to help me?" Arnold sat down on one of the restaurant chairs and draped a napkin across his lap.

"Shortman?" the fiercesome, black-haired man muttered out in a thick Latin American accent. The way he expressed "Shortman" sounded hateful, but his next words were calm and composed- almost kind.

"I have been made aware that you are in need of the services of an… explorer?" Arnold's eyes widened and he shook his head.

"Oh, no, I couldn't pay for anything like that! I'm just an… well, an orphan boy from the bad part of a city," Arnold said out loud, the word orphan sticking to his throat like an illness. He hoped it wasn't true, but he had to make it clear to the two men that he could not offer them any money!

"What I need," said Arnold carefully, "is someone who can read a map! Most of the words are written in Spanish. It's all notes on topography and if it was read I was hoping that I could find out where my family went." The man in the black suit picked up his glass of water. He smiled a cunning smile and Arnold smiled at him in hope.

"I am more familiar with the jungles beyond San Lorenzo than most, young man," he said. "I would be happy to oblige your request. Do you have the map?"

"It's in a journal, actually," said Arnold. "I left it back in my room," he said indicating with his thumb backwards. Arnold stood. "If you'll excuse me a few minutes, I'll go and get it!" Arnold bowed politely, then rushed upstairs to the hotel room. His eyes filled up with rage when he found his blue duffle bag sitting open on bed with no journal in it. Arnold searched, but there was no hope but to go downstairs again and explain to his dinner companions that he could not find the journal.

"I… must have misplaced it," Arnold pleaded awkwardly. "I'll call you and bring the journal to you when I find it!"

"If that event should EVER occur," said Padro Goldman with thick doubt, "then please, do so!"

The meeting concluded badly. They had only gotten coffees so the bill was small as Arnold paid it. His brow was furrowed up in frustration and anger as he walked back up to his hotel room. What could have happened to his missing journal?

What Arnold did not know is that upon exiting the restaurant, Padro Goldman made his way toward the dingy restaurant Helga had visited earlier in the evening. He removed his suit top and tie, then sat down at the table Helga had tipped over that same day. The man who had stolen Arnold's journal and the car driver regarded him nervously.

"So?" Said Padro Goldman. "Did you get the book?" The would-be-thief sweated heavily.

"We did what you asked, La Sombra! But we've had complications."

"Complications?" said La Sombre losing the elegant composure he had faked in front of Arnold along with his suit. "What kind of complications, you idiot?!" His fist slammed on the table. The two men cringed away from him.

"Boss man, it's like this… Some sprite or pixie..."

"A little girl…" disagreed the second thug.

"Or something! It stole the diary. The amulets, too. They just sort of floated away after her! We think it was one of those Green-Eyed People!"

"Impossible!" said La Sombre. "You idiots! I had thought it would be simple for you two to steal that journal from the fool boy! But now I see I was wrong." La Sombre tapped his chin his thought.

"I will find easier work for you."

"No thanks," said the thug. "We're thinking of trying our luck in Brazil, next."

"Idiots!" La Sombre snarled. "You are two of my men, now, and anyone who crosses me… does not live. Don't even think of running away! I will find you," the man said with a threat.

"No, go meet up with my men at the post in the Jungle. I will do what I can to remedy your mistake. I will keep an eye on this boy… on this… ARNOLD, in case his parents or this FAIRY contact him. IF the journal shows up again, I will secure it myself!" La Sombre made a menacing fist as if envisioning grasping the journal tight in it. "Mark my words, boys, we will find the Shortmans and the treasure of the Green-Eyes they have hidden from me!"

Back in the hotel, Arnold was completely ignorant that there was a plot brewing against him. Instead, his head was wrapped completely around the problem of finding his father's lost journal. He had an inkling of where it might be. Helga Pataki was… well, somewhat sneaky and suspect when it came to his things. He had discovered by accident that she swiped his worn-out school supplies regularly back in the fifth grade. After she had confessed to him at nine years old, Arnold had begun noticing a lot more things about Helga.

Helga ran around the corner. A depressed Arnold collided into Helga and was shocked when he saw the journal lying on the floor. "Helga!" he exclaimed with real astonishment. Arnold had hoped she would never go that far as to steal something so precious to him. "I can't believe you! I'm not in the mood for any of your silly pranks! For once in your life can you just stop acting crazy! And don't steal my things!" he said gathering up the journal. His hands paused on one of the two weird pendants.

"Arnold!" Helga blurted out with wild desperation. "Look, I know this looks bad but I was actually returning this to you! You see this man snuck into your room and he had these things," she said putting one of the pendants into his hand. Arnold looked at it cross-eyed.

"Whatever, Helga," said Arnold crossly. He kept the amulet. "Just go back to your room or something. Good night."

"Fine," Helga snapped.

"Fine," Arnold snapped.

"Fine," Helga snapped again as Arnold shut the door in her face. Helga picked up the second pendant from the hallway carpet and cherished it in her hand. It was something special.. Some relic of significance to her beloved, she just knew it! It was too bad he was angry at her, right now. Helga looks at the dull, smooth carved stone and sighed. Then she thought, 'Phoebe!' If anyone could help her right now, Phoebe could!


	3. Chapter 3

**_I had to depart a lot from my initial storyboard, so the text in the slideshow deviates a lot. Maybe I'll make a whole new slideshow to showcase the pictures someday. Maybe… If I'm really bored that is. My advice is to skip the text and watch the pictures! Regarding the fanfic, any comments, people? Love it, hate it? At least I had fun tossing the_** ** _Hey Arnold_** ** _characters into all kinds of interesting situations..._**

"Phoebe!" Helga said flinging into their room like a hurricane. "I need you to help me with a little problem."

"Sure, whatever is it, Helga?" Phoebe asked with her usual mousy voice. Helga pulled a crude sketch from her shirt front. She slammed it down hard on the hotel room desk, scattering Phoebe's writing and school supplies in every direction.

"I took a glimpse at that journal the Football-Head is carrying," Helga uttered. "There were some names. I remember 'em." Helga claimed proudly. Phoebe adjusted her glasses and looked down at Helga's thick handwriting.

"Miles and Edwardo? The Corizon River? The unknown? Helga, is this about Arnold's essay?"

"Sorta?" Helga waffled. Her brows lifted with puzzled thought. Then, as she settled on a purpose of why she was doing all this- to help a certain football-headed love-god- Helga lent back comfortably, lifting her arms to nest around her head. She crossed one foot over her knee and enjoyed the luxury bed since Phoebe couldn't.

"Well, Helga," said Phoebe from her hard chair at the hotel desk. "I think it's best we start with a topographical map. If the river in question is the same as in the essay, then the place Arnold is searching for is likely at the headwaters of the watershed between some very steep mountains or hills. We can draw up a map of possible geological areas to look. But then it's best if next we look for this Edwardo person. I recall from Arnold's essay that their South American friend was not deceased. He was last described at an airplane landing strip somewhere. Perhaps we can find him in a telephone phone directory somewhere here in San Lorenzo."

"Phoebe, you're brilliant!" said Helga. A lyrical cadence was in her voice as she praised her friend, so that the praise sounded like a poem. "Let's find us the nearest library."

"The library might be closed at this hour," Phoebe said. "Perhaps the bookstore? Or a private collector perhaps? At the least the hotel might have a computer terminal."

"Gotcha, Phoebes," said Helga. "Come on Phoebes. This going to be a long night!"

It was an hour before breakfast when Arnold heard a loud knocking on the hotel door. He let go of the pillow his head was scrunched against, then rolled over to blink at his surroundings. When Arnold was truly awake, he threw back the covers and slid his feet to the floor. Then, with a patient creak he shuffled toward the hotel door to answer his visitors. Arnold opened it to see Helga and Phoebe standing just outside.

"Hello, Helga," Arnold said slightly annoyed. But only slightly. He spun narrowly out of the way when Helga pressed her way into the room with Phoebe following.

"Make way, Football-Head," Helga declared with her particular brand of pride. "Today is your lucky day. I had Phoebes here do a little research on your little 'expedition'." During the word 'expedition', Helga paused to make a quotation gesture with her hands. "We've got some suggestions. You know, so that you get the job done right and all." She lent heavily on one foot and jaunted her hip, with shoulders out, and a broad grin on her face. Arnold stared at Helga. Her poses had him speechless.

"You see," Phoebe says showing a map she had made. "According to coastal settlement charts and the particularly jagged terrain recorded in your essay, there are a mere 8 out of 14 known headwaters where you might look for a village of the green-eyed people. If you include a waterfall over a steep plateau, that narrows the field to one zone. The unknown zone west of the west branch of the Corizon River. I believe your expedition should go there."

"More importantly, Football-Head," Helga said offering another sheet which Arnold took and stared at. "We've compiled a list of everyone named Edwardo in San Lorenzo in all the telephone service area in this part of the country. Your father's old friend is bound to be somewhere on here."

Arnold stared at the paper for a dull minute longer. When the shock of what he was hearing wore off, Arnold looked up with wide eyes. He bolted toward Helga to give her a sudden hug.

"Thanks Helga! Thanks a lot!" the boy said. He held Helga a little tighter to him then necessary.

"Woah, woah, hey there now!" Helga protested. She shoved Arnold away. "Move it or lose it, Bucko! No need to get all mushy!" She dusted herself off. Arnold gave her a small smile. Then he wrapped his arms behind his back to remove the temptation of using them again.

"Sure. Anything you say, Helga." Gerald threw his hands up in the air.

"Well, why don't you order in some breakfast, y'all? This is going to be a LONG morning." Gerald picked up the telephone and the list of telephone numbers. He appointed himself to making phone calls and crossing names off the list Phoebe had compiled. Phoebe, meanwhile, politely borrowed the journal from Arnold. She began to examine the real map and to make sketches and notes from the journal.

It was a long morning as Gerald had predicted. They ate pizza since yes, there was a 24 hour pizza-delivery-parlor in San Lorenzo and precious little else. No one would remove themselves from the room. Not when the mission was this important. Last time it had been Arnold, Gerald, and Helga on mission (with Helga directing from the background). But this time even Phoebe was giving it her all. She scribed through the map and inner contents of the journal with a ferocity rarely seen in her.

It was awkward at moments for them all to share the same small space. Helga could hear Arnold splashing at the sink in the bathroom. Then the tap was turned off and he appeared at the open door rubbing a towel against his face and hands to dry them. It was so… familial.

"Would you...like to use the bathroom next, Helga?" he asked with the perfect grace of a gentleman. It was seductive to Helga's ears. She pushed past him as he stepped aside. Inside, she was giddy, but she wore a scowl on her face.

"Move aside, Football-Face!" Helga barked. "I need to use the can!" She slammed the bathroom door behind her. Arnold retreated with haste.

"Any pizza left, Gerald?" he asked. His friend pointed to the near empty box. Arnold took the last, cooled slice in it. Mushroom pizza. He shrugged. Not great cold but decent.

At last, when Gerald was so bored he hung from the bed upside-down, his eyes popped wide open. Whatever it was Gerald was hearing on the other end of the phone line, it was good news. He began to scribble on a sheet of paper as fast as his hand could write. Slowly, carefully, Gerald set the phone receiver back on its cradle. He turned toward Phoebe with a smile. Gerald and Phoebe's eyes locked together in triumph.

"I think we've done it," said Gerald quietly. "I think we've really found him!" Gerald and Phoebe continued their smiling. It was as if Arnold and Helga were no longer in the room- they were that forgotten.

"Found what? Found WHO Gerald!" shouted Arnold trying to drag the truth out of him. Gerald Johanssen turned towards his friend. He swept a thumb across his hair and turned 'hip' again.

"Sounds like the right man, alright, Arnold! We found your 'Edwardo'. We talked to his secretary. He was out but Phoebe and I are going down to his office to pick him up, man. We'll drag him back here," said Gerald pointing his thumb down at an imaginary 'X' on the carpet.

"Great. I'll come too," said Arnold. Gerald frowned.

"Naw. This time, I'm going to protect you from doing crazy stuff, buddy. You and Helga make excuses to the teachers for us. Fake like we're sick or something. Go get some lunch. Trust me, I can take care of this!" Arnold sighed.

"All right, Gerald," he said in defeat.

"Good," Gerald said. "Now don't ya'll worry about a thing." He snapped up a jacket in his hand- just in case- along with his wallet.

"Now you kids stay here and play nice!" Gerald said with a wink and snap of his finger as he escorted Phoebe out the doorway. The door snapped shut and the two inhabitants paled as they realized they were alone with each other. Arnold ran a hand up his arm to rub it.

"Well," said Arnold awkwardly. "We might as well do as he says. Stay at the hotel, I mean! Do you.. Wanna find some of the other kids to hang with?" Arnold asked Helga, his eyes locked on her face.

"Sure," she mumbled. She walked out the open hotel door Arnold offered and waited for him to catch up in the hallway. Both were eager to flee the awkward space; the inner turmoil that raged when they had found themselves alone together- so near and yet so far.

"Yeah," said Helga unnecessarily. Arnold looked away just as shiftily. Her word expressed both their inner thoughts. It was a cooling promenade they needed. Arnold's hands were in his pockets as they made their way down the hallway. The two met the curious stares of a few grown-ups as they passed down the hall. They must have wondered why their cheeks looked so red. But Helga and Arnold had returned to some sense of normalcy by the time the made their way downstairs to the hotel's restaurant. It was ten in the morning still. They had bought pizza, but the kids from their school were programmed to eat breakfast together as one large brunch. Harold and the other students gathered just outside the restaurant door. Laughter and shouting rang out in equal measure; also the sound of a plant pot breaking as two kids shoved each other. Mr. Simmons stood among the students, a clipboard and pen in hand. He narrowly dodged a glider airplane. Arnold blinked. It looked like the ruffians from P.S. 118 were getting out of hand. But then their Principal, Mr. Wartz strolled forward. He scolded the class into a sudden hush.

"Having trouble, Mr. Simmons?" Mr. Wartz said in a calm, cool, menacing voice. His brow uplifted.

"No, no…." Mr. Simmons said with a weak smile and false optimism. "Everything is fine. Everything is going hunky-dory!  
"Um hm." says Principal Wartz skeptically. "Just make sure the little rabble-rousing monsters don't get too far. Who knows how far they'll go just to make trouble." He eye-balled Arnold's fellow schoolmates like they were tarantulas.

"Sir, don't worry," Mr. Simmons pandered. "I understand the safety and well-being of our students during this field trip is a grave responsibility. I'm sure that everything from here on out is going to go well and that this is going to be the best field trip ever!" Mr. Simmons swung his fist with enthusiasm for good measure. It seemed that it was a good thing Mr. Wartz had come along, after all. Now that he had calmed the tide of students, Mr. Simmons had gained his confidence back again.

"Oh look, it's Arnold and Helga! Great," their teacher said waving. "Now that leaves Gerald and Phoebe." Helga and Arnold give each other a sneaky 'how-do-we-lie' look.

"Uh, Mr. Simmons," says Arnold. Helga's face became a washed, blank, poker face. "Gerald and Phoebe both have travel motion sickness. You know, sensitive stomachs and all. They asked me to tell you they don't feel up to today's day trip. So Helga and me will be 'buddies' for today!" Arnold smiled at his teacher with hope that seemed like honesty.

"Oh. Oh, that's too bad," said Mr. Simmons scribbling a note on his list. When Mr. Simmons moved on to usher the rest of their class into the dining area, Helga and Arnold gave each other another look, this one saying, 'oh-my-gosh!' Now all they could do was wait for Gerald and Phoebe to return.

Arnold and Helga dined a second breakfast. Gerald and Phoebe took a cab across San Lorenzo. Meanwhile, elsewhere in an office in San Lorenzo, Padro Goldman was on the telephone. An angry scowl plastered across his face at the news he was hearing.

"What?!" He yelled. "You've lost the medallions AND the journal? You fools! Do you know how difficult it was to steal those from the Shortmans? Combining the medallions and the journal was our one chance of finding the Corizon! Without a relic of the Green Eyes to guide us, we have nothing! Except..." La Sombra turning over a copy of Arnold's essay. "The boy. Perhaps he knows more than he lets on." He scratched his chin. "Perhaps I and the boy..will keep in touch…" La Sombra's eyes glittered with a maniacal cruelty.

For Arnold and Helga, the day was going okay so far. Principal Wartz and Mr. Simmons were taking them and the entire class to a cocoa plantation to learn. It was peaceful in the thick groves of food plants- maybe even a little boring. Standing beside Arnold, Helga yawned. Her eyes popped open when she heard the screeching of monkeys. Ever since she was nine years old and a monkey had kissed her, she had not been especially fond of monkeys. Quite opposite, Curly smiled when he saw them and decided to climb up a tree to join them. Helga and Arnold watched quietly as Mr. Simmons tried to coax Curly down from the tree. While Helga was watching intently, a monkey snuck up near Helga and gave her arm a warm kiss. Helga took a swipe at it with her fist, but it leaped off her arm and scurried off just as the noise of nature fell silent all around them. With trepidation, Helga turned around.

"Hello, young lady.." said Padro Goldman rubbing his chin. His eyes were narrowed in thought as he regarded Helga's gold hair and twin pigtails. Perhaps she was the fairy his men had been talking about!

"Arnold," said La Sombra holding out a handshake. "We meet again, my friend. Allow me to congratulate you in person for your..EXCELLENT essay."

Arnold looked at Helga for a moment. The appearance of the man before him was a puzzle. He had not contacted Padro Goldman since getting the journal back. Yet, now that he was here, Arnold put his instincts aside and shook Padro's hand with both of his.

"I'm so glad to see you here!" the blond-haired boy said innocently. "I found the journal that went missing!"

"DID you now?" said Padro Goldman with a shrewd look that had Helga stepping back. All her instincts within her told her that Padro was not a good man.

"Uh, Arnold, can I have a word with you?" said Helga grabbing Arnold's shoulder and steering into the bushes by force. She hissed.

"Arnold," Helga said in a loud whisper. "Don't you notice how creepy this guy is?! He just screams, 'I like drowning people'. If anything, I'll bet you he's linked to the people who stole your journal! You know, the ones I got it back from for you!" said Helga lifting up the oblounge, carved, stone medallion she had strung around her own neck beneath her shirt. It was proof that she had really done what she claimed. Arnold looked inside his own shirtfront. He had, just for safekeeping, tied the second matching medallion around his own neck. The weight of the amulet was real and Helga's words seemed real, too. Arnold's eyes were round with concern for a few moments. But then he blinked. His eyes grew hard and narrowed.

"Nonsense, Helga!" said Arnold tucking the second amulet safely into his shirt front so he would not have to acknowledge it again. "Padro Goldman was introduced to me by someone from the Embassy! Mr. Wardman is a good man. He would never be friends with a criminal like that!"

"But Arnold!" said Helga, her hands outstretched in a desperate plea for him to see sense. "I KNOW a bad person when I see one! And I say that THIS ONE," she hissed loudly with her finger pointed in the direction of Padro, "IS BAD NEWS!" Arnold crossed his arms stubbornly.

"Helga, he's offering to help me find out about my parents for free. He's being generous. I think that entitles him to a benefit of a doubt! Besides, I need his help, Helga!" Arnold reasoned with a proud sniff. He began to prowl back out of the bushes. But Helga caught onto his arm by elbow for a few moments.

"No, Arnold, NO! Don't do it!" she begged. Arnold shook his arm free of hers and looked down, his eyes smoldering with rage.

"You know what, I don't think you care about whether or not I ever find my parents! All you can ever think of is yourself! You just don't want me to find them, do you? That way I'll always be with my grandparents in Hillwood so you can mess with me!" Helga gasped. Arnold had never said something so nasty to her in his life.

"Arnold, I promise! It's nothing like that! I just don't want you to get hurt!"

"Then don't worry," said Arnold as if the heart within had lost the warmth that had once made it so beautiful. It was too much for her to bear. Helga spun on her heel and fled, not just toward the rest of the class, but past it. Arnold's head jerked up in shock at how much his cruel words had upset Helga. But then his eyes narrowed again. He had come to far to find his parents. He would not give up now!

"Mr. Goldman," said Arnold opening up the blue duffle bag hung around his shoulder. "I have something for you to see!" La Sombra's eyes gleamed. "Do you now? Well bring it here! Boy…" He nearly snatched the journal from Arnold's hand. Padro Goldman began to riffle through it eagerly. The pages turned with a harsh "sffing" sound.

"And do you by chance have anything that goes with it?"

"Well," said Arnold with a second of hesitation. His innocence was undoing. "As a matter of fact, I do!" he said pulling the amulet Helga had given him free from his shirt front. La Sombra startled Arnold with a cackle as wicked as any the boy had ever heard.

"Good boy, good," said La Sombra grabbing holding of Arnold and whirling him into headlock. "Now don't scream. You and I are going to make a little departure from your tour."

While Arnold had succeeded only in getting himself kidnapped, Helga Pataki had ran all the way out of the crop plantation into a small, pretty grove of wild trees. Angry, she slammed her fist against one of the tree trunks. Arnold had said such mean things to her. Yet she could not blame him. It was halfway true. She had wished for nothing to come between him and her. That was why she had sought to steal the journal in the first place. Helga sniffed and sitting down with her knees drawn up around her head, she cried one or two tears before wiping them away.

Helga's eyes twerked directly behind her. She could hear that sound again. It was Brainy breathing down her back again. The timing was ever perfect. Three, two, one, whap! Her fist flung out and it made contact with a nose that kept on getting broken.

"Hi Brainy," said Helga standing over the boy with her arms crossed. This time, though, Helga was only half-angry. Her day was miserable and there was only one thing to do about it.

"Come on, Brainy!" she said much to the boy's astonishment as she waved a hand invitingly along to him like a man does a pet dog. "Let's go get a Yahoo soda!"

Back with the rest of the class, Mr. Simmons counted kids in front of their bus. Mr. Simmons finished counting. "Okay kids. Hm, that's funny. Three are missing! You all stay here while I go look for your classmates!" Mr. Simmons hurried off to the look for Arnold, Helga, and Brainy. Their principal was left to watch the children, but he did a poor job of it. As he hummed to himself, the remaining students disappeared one by one as hands grabbed them from around a corner and stuffed them into the an uncomfortable cage in the back of a truck. Arnold's entire class was being kidnapped by La Sombra's men! Mr. Wartz was interrupted from his mindless humming only when Mr. Simmons returned to the bus.

"Oh my, oh dear!" Mr. Simmons declared. He had not been able to find any of his missing students. Now every one of his students had vanished. It was too much! He placed both hands on his head and fainted dead away.

Now Helga and Brainy were the only ones not kidnapped! But Helga was oblivious that her prediction about Padro Goldman had proved accurate so quickly! Instead she had found a humming soda machine and put four quarters into it. She and Brainy both sat down at a picnic bench under a canopy of palm branches and sipped their cold sodas. Helga rambled on and on about her troubles all the while. Every now and then Brainy responded with, "uh, uh-huh!"

"Maybe you're right, Brainy," said Helga cheering up even though the boy hadn't said much of anything. "I can't give up! Even if he hates me… I love him. I have to try. I have to keep that foolish, idealistic daydreamer safe from himself!" Helga chucked her soda away, clenched her fists, and looked skywards.

It was a short dash to where Helga had seen Arnold last. But since then, everyone but Mr. Simmons and Mr. Wartz had vanished! Deep tire tracks through mud led off into the dark and foreboding jungle. Helga stared off into the distance along the tire tracks. She could steal the bus, but who would help her drive it? Just in the nick of time, Phoebe and Gerald appeared in a jeep with Edwardo.

"About time, Geraldo!" Helga scolded. "You should have been here to try to talk some sense into Football-Head! He's gone and got himself kidnapped!"

"What?" said Gerald, one eye wider than the other. "By who?"

"By, by, some guy with a scarred face and a creepy attitude! Padro Goldman!" she shouted with contagious panic.

"La Sombra!" Edwardo gasped out. "We must hurry! Or your friend may end up vanished like his parents!"

"You mean…" Phoebe uttered with a small gulp. Helga buckled herself into one of the seats as fast as she could.

"Yes! Hold on!" said Edwardo. He stepped on the pedal of the jeep. It bumped up and down nimbly across the deep gashes the large truck had made in the jungle mud.

They had now left civilization for the jungles of San Lorenzo. Under different circumstances, it might have been beautiful. Parrots were chattering and the vegetation was lush and moist. Tropical flowers bloomed everywhere, filling the jungle with a perfumed scent. Frogs sang somewhere and insects chirped. It was a lively paradise, but overwhelming.

Helga was lucky not to be stuffed into the back of a primate cage with the rest of his classmates. It was cramped and the noise was deafening as the school kids ranted at their captors. Curly screeched against the bars, pretending to be a monkey. But La Sombra had five whole men at his command. They unloaded Arnold's unhappy class and locked them in a shed in their secret jungle base. But what of Arnold?

Poor Arnold had been dragged by La Sombra into the largest building in the entire hideout. A map was lain out on the table there and the villain forced a frightened Arnold to look at it. He set the journal beside it.

"Now," Padro Goldman said with menace. "Pretend you are Miles Shortman. How do you use this map to find the hidden city? Answer the question, boy!"

"Hidden City?" Arnold speculated so calmly that Padro Goldman did not resist his lowering of his captor's fist from his shirt front. "Do you mean ruins?"

"No, fool boy!" said La Sombra growing angry again. "You know full well I mean the Lost City of the Green Eyes where your parents have hidden from me!" Arnold cringed. But La Sombra's words made his eyes go pop when he had finished recoiling.

"My parents?" He said with real astonishment. "You mean they are still alive?"

"Yes, dear boy," said La Sombra hovering over him so that Arnold was in his shadow. "And if you cooperate with me, boy, you may even meet them. Now, look down at the map! Where is the Lost City? Where is the Corizon!" At this, the angry man grabbed the amulet around Arnold's neck and pressed it to the surface of the map. He did not remove the leather strap hanging it from Arnold's neck, however. The boy was forced to lay low with his face inches over the map's surface to keep comfortable.

"What is this?!" His captor said with almost breathless amazement. "The glow... is gone!"

"What glow?" Arnold said rubbing his neck from where the leather strap had dug in. "It's just a stone."

"Oh, no! It is much, much more than that! It is a sacred relic of the Green Eyes. What could have diminished the glow?" The man paused in thought.

"I have an idea," said La Sombra wickedly. "Perhaps it is time for me to show you some of your friends…"

"You mean..." Arnold said with horror. La Sombra grinned horribly.

"That's right. Your little classmates, all of them! I have brought them here. So I hope you cooperate."

Arnold was jerked roughly about by his collar, then forced to march toward the shed where all his classmates were locked up. Arnold's frown was as deep as it could go as he stared silently at the frightened faces of most of his classmates. But he was relieved when there were three faces he DID NOT see. Gerald's Phoebe's, and Helga's. He kept his lips closed.

"There, now you see," said La Sombra. "If you are a good boy, Arnoldo, you will cooperate with me. If you lead me to the Corizon, it could be that you and all your friends will be allowed to return home." Arnold watched in silent horror as his fellow classmates were locked up again. He had hoped for a moment he would be locked up with them, but no, he was marched off back into the hut they had just come from. Arnold sat angrily in a chair next to the map, his arms crossed and eyebrows dark. Meanwhile, two of La Sombra's henchman began to cook a delicious dinner. They set two pots down on the table in front of Arnold, but the boy stuck his nose up in the air at the meal.

"Oh come now, Arnoldo friend. We work so well together," La Sombra said with some of the charm he had used when Arnold had first met him. "Where is the hidden city? Tell me everything." But the boy slapped La Sombra's hand away in refusal.

"I don't know. It's all just a story my Grandpa told me!"

"Listen Gringo. I've been searching for the Corizon for a long time and I did not kidnap a boatload of whining, pampered, American schoolchildren only to be thwarted now! Now. Think back. Some childhood memory. Some little clue."

"Look, if I knew where the hidden city was, don't you think I'd find my parents?" La Sombra stomped out of the room.

"Did he tell you where?" asked one of La Sombra's men.

"Stupido. He knows nothing. I only want to scare him bad enough so he'll do what I want. Now put him in the storeroom." Things might have gotten lame. But this flick was Hey Arnold- a show known for its charm and not fear factor- a true-blue anti-establishment rag. So Arnold DID NOT gasp like a fish. I did not ROLL MY EYES and turn the television off. Instead, he remembered he knew Kung Fu and he was a smart kid instead of a Hollywood faux. He posed his hands and feet for Kung Fu and gave his captors a little bit of a hard time before he was smoothly overpowered. Arnold growled with bad temper and gave his captors the stink-eye, but he DID NOT whimper and wail like a kicked dog. Arnold was smart enough to know that this Wolfgang had him in a barrel so he would have to see how it played out. Arnold's face waned with deep unhappiness, though. His eyes lingered on the doorway, hoping to dash out of it.

"Maybe a little rest will refresh your memory," said his captor. "Let's hope it does. I would hate to lose my temper." It didn't need to get anymore explicit content than that. Arnold knew he had gotten his friends and himself into a dangerous place. No, his show WAS NOT rated M, so he did not linger on gory possibilities in his head. But he did gasp.

"Hhh!" Arnold gasped.

"Accidentally of course," said this movie's bully. Arnold's expression was one of a smart kid SO not believing him. That's why we all love Arnold!

"Buenos Nochas." said La Sombra's sidekick slamming the storeroom door. Arnold was separated from all comfort. He tried to bust out of the storeroom door but it was hopeless. He curled up behind a crate and looked up into a slender bit of moonlight where the roof was poorly made. Arnold stacked crates and tried to reach the ceiling, but it was so high and so he sagged against his stack of crates in defeat, the moonlight shedding over his sorrowed face like a waterfall.

Elsewhere in the jungle, Helga looked up toward the moon, too. Gerald and Phoebe were busy piling branches into a campfire. Edwardo had lost the trail of the trucks after they had crossed a deep river- too deep for a jeep to cross. Edwardo promised they would begin searching for her friends in the morning but Helga's heart pined for Arnold. She took a long look at her locket with Arnold's picture in it, then a quick look back over her shoulder toward Gerald and Phoebe. They were both looking in the other direction when Helga bolted. Gasping, Helga stood on the river banks and hesitated only a moment before she dove in. Helga emerged water-sodden on the other side of the river and wrung out her hair. She walked up and down the riverbank until she found more tire tracks. These tire tracks she jogged along until she nearly stumbled into a river much larger than the first. It was foaming and full of rapids.

Helga followed the river and the tire tracks through the eerie night. There was the sound of a panther roaring somewhere and her eyes wandered behind her with a bit of panic in them. But the sound that Helga heard most was one of monkeys staring down at her from a tree top as she passed.

"Ew," Helga said remembering how much she disliked monkeys. Helga hurried along.

Then, out of the darkness, came firelight. Helga had found La Sombra's camp. But she did not dare rush into it. Instead, Helga crouched and settled into deep thought. Her eyes bulged when a cute little monkey sat down next to her and chirped adorably.

When the morning dawned, Arnold had slept only a few hours before the door to his jail room was opened. La Sombra's threats had rattled Arnold. He had reflected hard on it. Then he had remembered something. There was the map of suggested places to look that Phoebe had drawn up for him. It was tucked into the tearing seam of his little blue hat. On this morning, Arnold reached up and took the little piece of folded notebook paper out.

"Here," Arnold said offering the piece of paper with grave doubt. "Now let me and my friends go!" La Sombra opened up the page.

"Come, now," he said in a more amiable mood. Arnold was marched back out of the storeroom into the isolated hut. La Sombra propped his feet up on the surface of a table. While he read it, he relaxed by picking his teeth with a little wooden toothpick.

"Hm," he said scratching his chin in need of a shave. "Get the jeep. We are going out for a spell."

Arnold was hoisted up into the back of a jeep. La Sombra and two of his henchmen were seated around him although Arnold wished he could just hop out! But no, they sped away, bumping and jostling to a clearing overgrown by young trees. Among them, a bit of metal winked in the jungle sun. Arnold blinked. It was an airplane- the remains of one anyway. The wings were broken in several places and the body torn to shreds. Arnold could not help it! The biplane reminded him of the plane in his grandpa's stories about his parents, so he ran toward it and crawled up the tilted side of one of the wings. The rear seat was propped up against a depressed tree trunk and Arnold climbed up into it. Inside the seating area, Arnold overturned a bit of loose debris and found.. a photograph. It was a photograph of a little blond boy in diapers running and a woman in the background. Arnold's heart sunk. Tears filled his eyes. Without a doubt he had found it- his parent's ruined airplane.

"Mom? Dad?" The bewildered boy called out, forgetting for a moment his captors. But then La Sombra hefted him down from the airplane's wreck by the collar of his shirt.

"Now, come, Arnold SHORTMAN," said La Sombra with much hate for his last name. "You are going to help me find the Corizon, and you are going to help me do it now!" Arnold shoved his hands away.

"Why do want it so badly, anyway?" Arnold snapped against his better judgement. But this was a question which Padro Goldman liked to talk about.

"Because, boy. The Corizon hold a mystic power. The power of deity, it is said, able to unlock sacred doors of the Green-Eyed People! Any door… I have been in this jungle for a long, time Arnoldo, and there is one legend my village spoke of more than any other when I was a boy. The Temple of the Sun Warrior."

"Sun Warrior?" Arnold asked, perplexed.

"Yes," La Sombra explained, sounding calmer. "A century or more ago in this very jungle, the Green-Eyes worshiped a spirit. An immortal called Quepunne-Za. He was the deity of fire, the magma of the earth, and the sun. Only he fell in love with a mortal of the Tribe of Green-Eyes. He sought to make the woman's soul immortal through binding the power of the earth to her. She became intertwined with the spirit of the river itself and so their romance lasted for much longer than would have otherwise. But the power over death found out about the soul he had been denied without recompense. The deity of death sent Quepunne-Za's brother, Chaos, to rebuke him. Meanwhile, he met the semi-goddess Quepunne-Za had created in a battle. The two fought bitterly, flooding the entire jungle. But the deity of death prevailed and brought the maiden's soul to the underworld. Quepunne-Za re-emerged from where his brother Chaos had sealed him. He journeyed to the underworld, causing a solar eclipse, and fought the deity of death for his maiden's soul. When he found it, Quepunne-Za bound it so that he would not lose it again. But during the battle his own body was destroyed and so he became a formless spirit. But the Green-Eyed People did not forget Quepunne-Za or the kindness he had shown them. They carved a sacred statue, the Corizon, to house his spirit in! It was a statue filled with sacred magic and occasionally, a piece of Quepunne-Za was reborn as a mortal soul to search for a vessel for his maiden's soul."

"Why does an urban- I mean ancient- myth, a legend, interest you so much?" asked Arnold when La Sombra's maniac story-telling had come to a lull.

"Because, fool boy!" he said grasping Arnold's shoulder savagely and shaking it. "The Green-Eyed People filled an entire temple with tribute for Quepunne-Za! Emeralds, rubies, gold! Fortune without measure amassed for centuries for their jungle god! There is more treasure hiding in these jungles than any ever sunk in the ocean's seven seas. I have searched for it. I have looked throughout these jungles for decades and come so close. I have found the location of the temple. But without the Corizon, I can not hope to access the riches hidden in the mountain stone."

"Have you tried dynamite?" Arnold suggested logically.

"Fool!" said La Sombra growing angry again. "We are speaking of forces of nature! Forces you can not possibly comprehend! Now, use the amulet in your hand. Search out for the Corizon. If we can not find the Shortmans or the Lost City of the Green-Eyes, we can perhaps find the location of the Corizon! I fought and stole the amulet from them ten years ago. I know they sealed the Corizon somewhere safe from me using the magic of that very amulet! They disappeared into the jungle years ago! But with you, their son, using the amulet, perhaps the magic can be … coaxed?"

Arnold looked at the amulet in his hand. It didn't seem to be magic in anyway. But he had little choice. He spun and looked about the clearing all around him. The peak of a jagged hill was the only thing that met his eyes besides trees, so he headed towards it. His captors followed close behind him so he could not make a run for it. Almost fated, Arnold's feet stumbled across the jungle floor and straight toward the symbol of an eye carved against the sharp-spired hillside. It was a curious eye, as football-shaped as his head but with a unibrow like Helga's. Arnold rested his hand against it. The amulet around his neck did not glow green but Arnold's hand did where it was pressed against the stone. The side of the mountain crumbled inward and Arnold peered into the dark. He crawled forward. Maybe he could lose La Sombra? To his disappointment, there was only a small alcove inside. It was a storage space and not a room. Not much was stashed inside. A few chests, funny-looking clothes, and a broken spear. Poised among the junk was a large object wrapped in cloth. Arnold lifted it with all his might. He tottered under the weight of the heavy stone but dragged it to the entrance of the cave. La Sombra snatched it up immediately.

"Ah-ha!" La Sombra cried with wicked glee. He embraced the stone. "The Corizon! Soon, I will be rich!"

"Now let my friends go!" said Arnold crossly. La Sombra glared back at the blond-haired boy.

"Maybe, maybe not," he tormented Arnold.

But while La Sombra had kidnapped Helga's sweetheart to ferry him around the jungle, she had managed to make truce with the monkey. It adored her, clearly.

"Look," said Helga speaking to it, annoyed but calmly, hands on her hips, as if it were a real person. "I know you like me, monkey. But I don't like-you, like-you! But we could be friends if you'd just do one little favor for me. You can go and get me that key," Helga said pointing to the one guarded by one of La Sombra's men, "so I can unlock my friends! What do you say? Do we have a deal?" The monkey chirped again, then crawled off into the compound.

La Sombra's hide-out had three guards, currently. Two of his men had left with La Sombra and Arnold. None of them paid any attention to the monkey as it climbed down one of the roofs and stole the key hanging above one of their heads. The monkey returned with the key and handed it to Helga. Then it smooched the poor girl loud on the mouth before scampering off into the treetop.

"Yuck!" Helga exclaimed wiping her mouth with the back of her arm. She spat and her eyes riveted up into the sky with anguish. "I HATE monkeys!" But then again, her admirer had brought her the key to the building all her fellow classmates were in. Helga snuck over to the building when its watchers wandered to the compound's other side. She unlocked the door and swiftly stepped within.

"Helga?!" Rhonda Lloyd exclaimed in shock. "I'm so glad to see you!" Helga was overwhelmed when Lila surprised her with a brief hug.

"I'm ever so glad you're okay."

"Yeah, sure," said Helga looking around towards the boys. "Harold! Curly! Sid! All of you! I have a little work for you to do. We're busting out of here!" Helga declared. Harold looked at the wicked smirk on Helga's face and smiled his trouble-maker smile. The ruffians of P.S. 118 burst out of their prison room like a storm. The three men left on guard duty never stood a chance!

But what of Mr. Simmons and Mr. Wartz? P.S. 118 had been missing for over a day! Mr. Wartz had come upon a radical solution. He stood in front of a bunch of monkeys dressed up in child's clothing.

"But Principal Wartz," Mr. Simmons protested beside the empty school bus. "You can't just pass these monkeys off as their children!'

"Nonsense," says Mr. Wartz proudly. "The parents will never know the difference." There was some truth to that. The kids of P.S. 118 had just run through the jungle compound like a pack of wild animals.

"Get down!" yelled Helga at her school companions, some of them now wearing war paint. A jeep was approaching. Arnold stood by the jeep, La Sombra and his two remaining men on either side. But they all stared for Helga stood in her little pink dress in the center of the compound, unflinching and unafraid. She blinked her eyes and tiptoed absurdly.

"Oh look at me! I'm a lost little girl and I'm so afraid!" Helga pantomimed.

"Helga?!" Arnold stuttered out in horror just before someone pulled him from behind. Harold and Curly and Sid kidnapped Arnold from his kidnappers and made off into the woods. Arnold was in too great a shock and too upside-down to speak!

"It's that boy's little girlfriend!" La Sombra said pointing a finger toward Helga. He and his men moved forward to capture her but Helga bolted spryly away with a laugh.

"Hah! Ya losers!" Helga laughed as Curly and others bombarded the men with objects. La Sombra sheltered behind a tabletop from rocks until the volley subsided.

"You fools!" he said pointing a finger to his tied and bound men. "Release those three! We are going after them! Those school children can not run far," La Sombra claimed with menace.

Harold and Arnold met up with Helga and the rest of the school group along the river's edge. Helga meant for them all to follow it, and so they jogged until Arnold caught up to Helga.

"Helga?!" he said in astonishment. "What are you doing here?!"

"Saving you Football-Head," she said without a blink. A smug but content smile curved on her lips. Arnold looked down at his feet.

"Well. I'm glad. But I think I did something I shouldn't have. I helped him find a relic he was looking for."

"So he collects antiques," Helga scoffed, still jogging. "Let's get out of here!" But there was the roar of car engines. They had erred badly in not stealing the vehicles.

La Sombra's minions had appeared. Only, now one of them was packing a dart gun and the others branding sticks. The school children dove into the bushes. Helga pressed herself flat against a tree. "Criminy, if we don't do something, we'll all end up on milk cartons! We've got to fight back, somehow!"

"But Helga, we can't do that, " said Arnold, his eyes wide. "There are five of them, and they're grownups."

"We'll see about that," says Helga taking out her lucky golden slingshot. She rolled out behind her tree and slingshot four of them to the ground in rapid succession. Nadine and Rhonda breathed a sigh of relief. That had nearly been caught! But the last of Helga's opponents pulled up a dart gun. Her shoulder hit the ground, hard, and she rolled back into cover again without her slingshot. She had lost it when her shoulder had hit the ground.

"Crude. If we stay here, they'll kill us! We'd better run."

"That's exactly what I've been saying Helga," said Arnold tugging on her sleeve.

But Helga was lost deep in thought. Her eyebrows lowered and she took on a determined look.

"Hey, whatever happens next," Helga said using her suave voice, "run, kid, and don't look back."

"Helga what are you doing?" Arnold asked grasping for her sleeve. But Helga shook evaded Arnold's grasp. She took a deep breath, picked up the largest stone in sight and ran out from behind the tree. The rock, when Helga threw it, was just enough to interrupt the aim of her foe. She tackled him and with a noisy splash, he tumbled into the river below. There was a steep cliff there and deep water underneath. Without intention, the man who had fallen into the river now faced a deadly threat. Crocodiles burst up from the water's surface like soap bubbles and he endeavored to swim away. (It's up to the reader's imagination whether he got eaten or not. ;)

Helga stared down into the river, triumphant! But her joy was short-lived because La Sombra grabbed hold of her in that instant. He hoisted Helga up by her pink dress and grasped at a chain around her neck. He had been expecting an amulet to be there, but no, it was only a locket with Arnold's picture in it and he flung it angrily to the ground, smashing the glass cover to pieces.

"You, you conniving wench!" La Sombra raged. "No one gets in the way of La Sombra!" In an act of cruel villainy, La Sombra tossed Helga G. Pataki out towards the river.

"NO!" Arnold cried. His shout echoed throughout the jungle as he bolted toward the river's edge and stared down at the waters. Crocodiles churned the waters. Birds cried out in rage all through out the jungle canopy.

"Ew," Rhonda commented to Nadine, cringing. Arnold felt sick. He stumbled and picked up Helga's locket from the ground and cradled it in his hand. At that precise moment, the amulet around Arnold's neck cracked in half. A green magic seeped out of the broken amulet, drifted through the air, and into the locket. Arnold picked up the broken halves and stuffed them into his pocket quickly before La Sombra could see!

"Now," said La Sombra. "If you don't want any of your other friends to end up the same way, you will do EXACTLY as I say!"

But of course Helga could not be dead! Helga really did get tossed into a river full of hungry crocodiles. But the amulet around her neck glowed green, surrounding her in a sort of 'magic bubble'. As Helga held her breath, the giant crocodiles all swam away. She began to drift eerily downriver. Helga was amazed but went along with it until the force that pulled her yanked her up to the surface of the water again. Helga gasped and sputtered. Then she looked all around her. She had come to a set of stone steps somewhere in the jungle. There was the remains of an ancient temple here! Helga gave a small smile until another monkey leaped out of the jungle onto her arm with a wide grin. Helga gave a frown. This monkey wasn't getting any favors out of her! She punched it and the monkey disappeared into the croc infested river behind her. Helga didn't look back to see how it had fared. Instead, she stomped off to enter a tiny stone shrine only to encounter... Brainy!

"Brainy?" Helga said more astonished than ever. "What are you doing here!? Hm. Come to think of it I never saw you among the kidnapped kids."

"I dunno," said Brainy. That was as much an answer as Helga was ever going to get out of him. She shrugged.

Helga's time was much better spent exploring her surrounding, instead. So she wandered about the vacant temple grounds. There were not many patches of roof standing. There were mainly a few stone pillars here and there interspersed among the jungle. But near the largest portion of standing temple, Helga could hear the gentle lap of yet more water. In a shallow pool there was a little boat and Helga climbed up into it. The boat floated admirably. There was even a pouch with fresh food and a canteen at its prow. That meant there were people nearby! Helga tilted her head. It looked like the boat was for navigating a canal.

"Come on, Brainy," said Helga with unusual generosity as she untied the boat from its dock. "Let's see where this old tub takes us!" She handed a oar to Brainy and he and Helga rowed into the mysterious, dark canal past a symbol of a football-shaped eye with a wide unibrow!


	4. Chapter 4

The underground canal Helga and Brainy paddled through was thin and dark. The sound of water sloshing from one side to the next surrounded them like water reverberating in a public swimming pool; so loud and close to their ears, it was almost deafening and covered the 'sloush' and 'drag' of their oars against the surface of the water. As for light, well, there was a faint source that kept the darkness of the tunnel from being absolute. Above them, ever forty yards or so a natural skylight had been carved into the tunnel's ceiling. These sky holes created guiding runway, a humble string of modest light for them to aim between. The darkness had always been one of the greatest fears for Helga. It felt like the dark shadows of the underworld were at the nape of her neck as she and Brainy glided through one zone of darkness to the next, her eyes craned for a ray of sunshine as bright as Arnold's hair. At each path of light, Helga pulled her paddle into the boat to pause and collect herself. She soaked in the brightness of the jungle sunshine piercing the stone overhead and gathered her courage to go on.

But there was no path but forward for Helga. It was what she must do, or be lost in the jungle forever. Her thoughts lingered on the boy she had left behind. The boy whom she loved. The boy whom might even now might have been recaptured by his captors! After Padro Goldman had thrown her from the cliff towards certain death, it was almost certain that he had taken Arnold back to the compound.

Helga wondered for a brief moment, what Arnold had thought of her 'passing'? Would he miss her even a little since it had seemed that, she, Helga had wound up chow for twenty-foot crocodiles? Helga tormented herself with the thought that under the current circumstances, no one, missing her or not, would even know to come looking for her. But thanks to the amulet, death had been cheated by some mysterious means. There was a slim chance, a dim hope of finding her way to Arnold again! Helga held a single hand up into a slight glimmer of sunlight. She pressed one hand to her chest and and imagined that the light was a thin strand of her beloved's hair and she was near to him.

"Oh, Arnold," said Helga tipping the boat from side to side a little with her dramatics. "I pray that one day I get to see that giant, distinctively-shaped, oblong head of yours again! How I long to ruffle that bright, sweetly scented hair of yours and tangle my hands within its silky locks!" Helga's desperate plea echoed against the cool stone. The canal water below Helga rustled. Then, it began to pull, speeding the little boat they were in faster and faster in choppy waves. There was a roaring gurgle off in the distance as if someone had unplugged a drain somewhere. Helga sat down in the boat and gripped her hands on either side. Helga gritted her teeth. Quite possibly, she was near to death again.

The skylights overhead passed by faster and faster. Their little boat dropped down a series of falls like stepping stones, jarring Helga. Water sloshed and soaked her head to foot. Brainy just sat in the boat, twiddling his thumbs with a manic grin while Helga let out one of her high-pitched, ear-piercing screams.

"Oh this is it! The underworld is going to claim my soul!" Helga wailed to herself. Her anguished eyes looked up to the invisible heavens. But then, Helga's fears were distracted by a hopeful sign. The stone roof overhead began to break up into open sky. The wall of stone on either side of them was still high, like a chute, but at least there was daylight. There was green and a wall of open sky ahead.

"Hey what's that?" Helga said becoming distracted. The canoe bumped into a rapids so fast that its occupants were tossed up and down like liquid in a shaken jar. It brought to mind to Helga the time she had seen her mother ride and mechanical bull and she held on tight. The moment after she came to this thought, the little boat was dropped down into a large, calm pool of a small but broad cavern. The pure, blue water was like a lagoon's. Fishing poles and wooden fish traps were abundant on either side of their canoe- a hopeful sign of humanity. It took the canoe mere moments to pass out of this one, final cave into a dock. Helga tumbled upside down as the boat glide to rest with a grinding halt against a mass of unkempt reeds.

"Oomph!" Helga complained out loud as she righted herself. She rubbed a small bump on her head and crouched at the prow of canoe, looking all around her. Brainy stood up and silently, moored the boat. Wordless, he watched Helga with his lopsided smile.

"Where are we?" Helga inquired of her current companion. Brainy shrugged his shoulders. Helga rolled her eyes. Brainy never was one for conversation, so she wasn't all too surprised by his wordless answer.

The soft vegetation by the water's edge was tall but easy to press through. Helga bullied her way through while Brainy followed her footsteps. All the while she held her breath for the sound of some other human being besides her and Brainy.

Helga's expectations came true quickly enough. The noisy clatter of an active village pinged at their ears. Laughter and gentle babble mixed like music. Helga's eyes were as wide-open as they could go as she stepped free of the last of the brush. Her pink dress and trademark hair ribbon were her only ambassadors as the eyes of a dozen people stopped and turned toward her to stare. Helga stared back at the Green-Eyed People.

"Huh, hello?" said Helga uncertain what to say. After all, she had just crashed their party (or really, village!) She stamped forward past people who had forgotten their feet were capable of walking.

Helga's stomp brought her directly into a village square. A large statue looking something like Arnold dominated the square and Helga paused before it. As a natural artisan of shrines herself, Helga paused to critique it, one hand under her chin and the other hand crossed across her wrist.

"Hm! Not bad!" Helga muttered before plopping herself down on the giant pedestal the statue was situated on. She was tired, after all. But the eyes of many of the villagers turned angry immediately and they began to mumble. Some even began to approach.

Helga stood up, defensive as chattering village people crowded her. "Hey, hey, hey, hey! Get away from me!" she yelled. Helga shoved the nearest person away from her, backed three steps, and pulled out her fists. She cracked her knuckles and took on her meanest look. "All right you, which is the first who's going to get it?" At her cruel pose, the attitude of the crowd began to change. Reverent awe began to be heard instead of gossip.

"OOH!" said the villagers, a few of them jabbing their fingers in the air towards Helga in excitement.

But then a little 'ring, dinga, dinga' sound like a little faerie's bell rang out. A little girl dressed in a robe too big for her held up a stick with a chiming bell on it. Coming down broad stone steps into the city's square came an old man with a slouched back and several other men and women seniors like him. They muttered and chattered about Helga as the remainder of the townsfolk watched. When the they had reached a consensus, one of the seniors spoke to the child holding the staff. It nodded and Helga noticed then that it was a girl a year or two her junior. Tripping on her robes, the dark-skinned, Green-Eyed Girl approached Helga cautiously.

"What... is… your... Name?" the child asked in slow but carefully spoken English. Helga blinked.

"Huh?! Ugh, my name is Helga. Helga Pataki," she said scratching the back of her neck in discomfort. "What's it to you?"

"Where..are..you..from?" Helga reflected back. It occurred to her that this might be her only chance to speak to an English-speaking person, so Helga began to spew her words, promptly.

"I came up from the river," said Helga jerking a thumb over her shoulder before rolling into her plea. "Look! I got separated from my friends and I really, really need to get a ride up river! I NEED," said Helga placing her hands across her aching heart, "to get back to Arnold!"

"What?" asked the little girl, cocking her head. Helga tried again.

"Arnold? Arnold? The Football-Head who's managed to get himself kidnapped twice?" said Helga rearranging her hands to her hips. "I need to get back to Arnold! I need a boat! I need to save him!" There was more chatter.

"Who...are...you?" said the child, trying again to get something intelligible from Helga. Helga sighed. It looked like it was going to be charades.

"I walked," she said pantomimed with her fingers 'walking' on her hand. "I swam," she said making swings with her arms. "I looked," Helga said shading her eyes with her palm and gazing all around her. "I got thrown into a river and this thing saved me!" Helga declared at the last, pulling the amulet of the Green-Eyes from around her neck out into the open to drop against her dress front. Astonished gasps echoed all around her. Then all of the Green-Eyes, young and old bowed. Many of them lay or kneeled on the ground. Helga studied the sight before her.

"Well, that's more like it!" Helga said with a satisfied smile.

Helga did NOT understand what was going on all around her. But she was not going to complain when one of the villagers set up a chair next to the giant statue shaped like Arnold. The villagers all scrambled to bring food for Helga and soon she was surrounded by giant bowls of fruit pulp and platters of baked fish. Helga took up a bowl of baked vegetables and began to throw the odd, violet-shaded tubers into her mouth one by one. "Hm, not bad," she commented, then swallowed.

Helga belched and was quite sleepy when she finally finished dinner. Someone was playing a stringed instrument softly in the background for her. All throughout dinner, someone had been making a large sculpture of her from stone as green as jade. Helga had even offered a few saucy poses for it. But the one they chose was her looking war-like. When Helga pressed her plate away, four maidens approached with a basket full of flowers and wove them into her hair.

"Wow," said Helga dreamily. "I could stay here forever!" But then Helga's eyes opened and she jumped to her feet. She pressed her hands against the surface of the table forcefully.

"What am I? Thinking?!" Helga admonished herself. "I've been here dining and Arnold is somewhere out there in danger! I have to go to him!" Helga tore the dinner bib she had been wearing free from her neck and dashed it to the ground. Then she began to run further into the village. The young girl who spoke a little English jogged after her.

"Helga! Helga!' She called in a voice that sounded a little like Phoebe's. Helga stopped her run to face the girl.

"What is it?!" Helga declared waving a hand up into the air and keeping the other on her waist as she glared. "I'm busy, so make it snappy!"

"Helga," said the girl. "You are looking for Arnold… Arnold Shortman?" Helga grew numb.

"Can you take me to Arnold? Please?" Helga pleaded. But her guide shook her head.

"I will take you...to Shortman!" the Green-Eyed girl said with a smile.

It was then that Helga noticed that Brainy had wandered off somewhere. But that boy was as mysterious as a shadow and she had other work to do. Helga shrugged it off.

Elsewhere in the jungle, Edwardo, Gerald, and Phoebe had finally found the now vacant compound of of La Sombra. Edwardo spoke into a buzzing walkie-talkie on his jeep, telling others what he had found. Then he hung up the device.

"I am sorry, amigos," he said putting a hand on a dejected Phoebe's shoulder. "We will find your friends. I promise."

"Really?" said Phoebe sniffling. There were tears in her eyes and Gerald put a comforting hand on her shoulder.

"Si," Edwardo promised. "Come! We must not give up hope!" Gerald, Phoebe, and Edwardo returned to the jeep facilitated search fro Helga, Arnold, and their classmates.

Meanwhile, things had gotten very unpleasant for Arnold and his fellow classmates of P.S. 118. One of La Sombra's men had fallen into the river and not returned. But four of his five men now wore bandages around their heads. They angrily stuffed all of Arnold's friends back into the primate cage. Now that La Sombra had the Corizon, it seemed he was less interested in Arnold himself. He was grouped with the other kids.

But the truck with the cage of uncomfortable and cramped students drove not back toward the compound the kids had escaped from, but deeper into the jungle. The truck they were in rattled across a bridge made of logs and onto an island in the middle of a river. It was not sandy beaches they had to look forward to. There, a riverboat waited for La Sombra the River Pirate and his men.

Dismayed, Arnold was tossed into the hull of the boat roughly. Arnold staggered back and fell. But when he picked himself up and brushed himself off, Arnold was relieved to be grouped with the other kids. But it was a small smile that graced his lips. "Helga," he said looking down. Moving into the shed's dim light, Arnold pulled Helga's damaged locket from his the pocket of his jeans. Arnold looked at the locket sadly. His friends and classmates gathered all around him.

"Whatcha got there, Arnold?" asked Stinky.

"It's something that..belonged to Helga." said Arnold slowly. "I just can't believe what happened."

"I just wish there was something I could have done for her," Arnold began wistfully. "All this time, I suspected maybe she had feelings for me." Arnold had understated the facts a bit. He was sure from FTI that Helga DID have feelings from him, but ever since her retraction, it had been a taboo subject between them. Whenever Arnold did show affection for Helga, it inevitably brought on a mood swing in the girl.

"Man, it was sure plain obvious," Stinky said flatly.

"Tell me about, man," Sid agreed. "I think the only one who didn't realize she had a major crush on you is you."

"Hey!" Arnold said with a scowl.

"I'm sorry, Arnold," said Eugene. "You're a really good guy and you and your friends don't deserve such ill fortunes."

"Poor Helga," said Stinky.

"Yeah," agreed Harold. "I remember the way she used to give me all the fruit-flavored candies from her Halloween bag. And the time we got stranded together and the angry, midget- clowns almost clobbered us. I even told her I loved her once. Of course she turned me down immediately."

"Yes, sir," says Stinky. "Helga was sure a sweet girl behind all that bluster. But all she ever had eyes on was Arnold."

"She was tops," Sid added for good measure. Heartbroken, Arnold looked at the locket.

"And I let her down," the boy admonished himself.

"Don't blame yourself, Arnold," Eugene encouraged him. "There was nothing you could do."

"Maybe there is," said Arnold pocketing the locket. "We can take revenge. We can stop La Sombre." He lifted a fist to the air. Defeating La Sombra was no longer a matter of mere self preservation. It was a matter of revenge. Rapidly, the kids of P.S 118 huddled together.

The preparations began. Many, including Arnold, ransacked the ship's hull or borrowed beauty supplies from the girls to make war paint. Arnold borrowed a tube of lipstick from Rhonda Llyod and used it to make two, long, blood-red stripes below each of his eyes. For the occasion, Curly painted himself in tiger stripes from a can of white boat paint. Someone found a bag of feathers somewhere and all of the kids had tucked them into their hair to look the part of a warring tribe.

The first attack went to Nadine. Obsessed with insects, she had been amassing an enormous collection of all kinds of creepy crawlies. But Nadine's fellow classmates convinced her that, for the greater good of all, Nadine should release them all at once on the first, hapless river pirate that opened their cell.

The blood curdling screams of a river pirate being swarmed by thousands of creatures was startling. It ceased abruptly as the first of La Sombre's man was bound, gagged, and stuffed into the ship's luggage. Even more startling to the remaining three of La Sombre's men was the bellowed outcry of all of the P.S. 118 students. The P.S. 118 kids ran out onto the deck like wild animals. Curly swung from the deck's rigging with a dart gun he had stolen and hidden back at Helga's fateful river encounter. Two more of La Sombra's men were swarmed by angry preteens. But according to plan, Arnold and Eugene now had to take the helm from La Sombra himself!

For this battle, Arnold found himself a bit of wood that felt and looked a baseball bat. It felt familiar in his hand since he was the best batter of Gerald's Field. But as Arnold kicked in the door to the ship's cabin, Arnold had cause to fear. La Sombra smiled at him from behind the steel of a real sword.

"So," said La Sombra with a cruel chuckle. "Inside that small boy lies a man, eh?"

"It's over La Sombra!" said Arnold with true rage. "I won't let you hurt any more of my friends!"

"Aren't you going to hit me with your little stick, then, boy? No? Then I will come for you!" said La Sombra making the first move. His sword cut a good way through Arnold's wooden weapon. But as La Sombra pressed down, he was surprised by Arnold's strength. He was an athletic twelve-year old. Arnold leveraged La Sombra off and threw him backwards to refind his balance.

"Ah? So upset that I killed your little girlfriend?" Arnold's eyes glittered hard.

"More like a lover, really. Although I admit, she deserved better than that. Eugene!"

Eugene had been sneaking around La Sombra into the cabin to steal a fire-extinguisher hung next to a semi-modern steering wheel. He sprayed La Sombra with it (but most ended up spinning onto Eugene cause he's a clutz). Padro Goldman spat foam. But he was not blinded for long. La Sombra swung out his sword and as Arnold dodged it, his other fist caught hold of Arnold and he dragged the boy forcefully out onto the deck. La Sombra took a second sword down and tossed it to Arnold.

"If you have something to say to me, boy, then fight like a man! Duel!" La Sombra growled like thunder. Padro Goldman chopped and it was all Arnold could do to keep the man at bay. Arnold's footing was precarious as the boat began to skid against shallow river bottom. No one was steering the ship until Eugene darted to seize the wheel. Arnold regained his footing, but so did La Sombra. La Sombra's sword scratched against Arnold's arm as he held it just far away enough for it to cause a serious wound. (Because that would not be PG!) He flinched yet held strong!

Yet, Eugene's attempts to stop the fully steaming boat were not going well. The riverboat jarred against the riverbed again and tilted. Arnold slipped and fell against the side-prow rigging. La Sombra crept up towards him, sword upraised.

"Curse you!" said Arnold and his amulet glowed green. The river and the riverbed of the Corizan River shifted in an instant. A wave cascaded against La Sombra, knocking him off the ship. A wave of rock tilted the ship upright again, and Harold and Sid and Stinky pulled Arnold up from his precarious hold on the ship's rigging.

"Arnold!" Eugene said pointing from a mess of rope he had got stuck in.

"Oh, horsefeathers," said Stinky as the boat rammed full speed into what seemed like a solid rock wall.

But it wasn't. It was a thin stone and earth veneer. The steamboat rammed through and began to tear apart on the sandy bottom of a manmade waterway. They set off a chain reactions that had stone statues on the banks on either side of them tumble down behind them and an entire concealing theatre for the civilization of the Green-Eyes became as dust. The shattering boat ground to a halt against their city's shore.

Arnold blinked. He was alive somehow, and so were the rest of his class. A jittered Eugene unglued the steamboat's steering wheel from his hand. "I'm alright!" He said before he collapsed.

"Man! Remind me never to let you drive again!" said Harold, his hands on his hips as he looked sour.

"Get me out of here!" another of the kids called from a barrel. Arnold moved to help but his arm stung. It had been cut a little by La Sombra.

"Are you okay?" Eugene asked with great concern.

"Yeah, Eugene," Arnold said as he pressed his hand against his arm. "I think I'm going to need a bandage." He and his friends looked up at the vast city before them.

"Willikers!" said Stinky Peterson. Arnold recognized the symbol on the amulet he was wearing immediately. It was everywhere before them.

While the steamboat Arnold was on had been crashing, the Green-Eyed girl led Helga higher up in the city. It was a wonder to Helga how there was an entire suburbia of stone here in the hidden jungle and some very unusual-looking inhabitants. They came to the very peak of the city and looked down. From here, Helga could see a hundred of tiny, charming houses. Near her, there was a channel of clean, briskly flowing water. Women of the city were drawing water from it. Behind Helga, at the top of her current street, a building larger than most wrapped around the mountain's side. Walking inside, Helga got the impression that this was a field hospital. There were cots lined up in a large room and benches for sitting on. Helga sat down on one of the seats and stared all around her.

"Well, Helga G. Pataki," said Helga murmuring to herself. "I guess this mean you've finally snapped! Your infatuation with Arnold has turned into one grand delusion and Phoebe's had to bring you to the psychiatric ward!" She crossed her legs and leaned back. But what Helga saw next had her rubbing her eyes again. The two figures looked exactly like a photograph the Football-Head had showed her only the other day, except a little older. Helga pinched herself in case she was sleeping.

"Hello there," says Stella Shortman kneeling down. Her long hair was bound up into a knot behind a visor made of leather. Her bottom half as covered in shorts instead of tuic and her accent was very American. The man behind her was tall and very blond.

"What's your name?" said Stella.

"Helga," she said stiffly."

"Nice to meet you, sweetie. Well, Helga. I'm Stella and this is Miles. We live here in this village."

"Wow. This is a strange kind of vacation package," Helga said sarcastically.

"Well, we're doctors of a sort. We've been in this village for the last ten years tending the Green-Eyes. Ever since the villagers sealed the valley entrance to hide from La Sombre. But how is it that you got here?"

"You mean to say you've been stuck here in this village for the past ten years?"

"That's right," says Stella. "How did you and your friend get here?" Helga looked behind her. Brainy had appeared again like a shadow that just won't go away. He gave Helga a friendly wave.

"Secret passage," said Helga returning to the business at hand. "Just suffice it to say that this fella La Sombra is kidnapping school children to help find a magical antique of his. It's a long story." Stella gasped.

"Oh no! Miles! If La Sombre has found the Corizan, the whole village is in danger. We must take action!"

"Tell me about it," responded Helga. "This La Sombra character is bad news!" said Helga waving a hand. "Wait a minute," says Helga. The wheels turned. "You two explorers have been her for the last...ten...years. His parents! Oh my gosh! You two MUST be Arnold's parents! Come on, your son is just dying to meet you. Plus we've got to save him." Stella and Miles looked at one another.

"From who? You say that.. our son… Arnold is here?!"

"Psff! No," said Helga. "I wish. We got separated. That La Sombra character threw me off a cliff. He KIDNAPPED ARNOLD. We have to go now!"

"Miles?" Stella implored her husband. Miles Shortman stood up manfully.

"Yes, honey, let's go!"

Helga waited while the Shortmans spoke to the Green-Eyes in their native language. There were a few hurried bows. Helga tapped a restless finger along the side of her arm. She was eager to depart. But her eyes fell on her most mysterious of classmates. He had been loitering outside the hospital.

"Coming Brainy?" Helga asked.

"Uh, that's all right," said Brainy. "I'll just stay here." He grinned.

Helga looked. It was small wonder that Brainy had elected to stay behind. He had always had a soft spot for Helga, she knew. Heck, the weird kid had even proposed to her once. But now Brainy was flanked on either side by a blond, Green-Eye girl who looked almost EXACTLY like Helga. One of the Helga look-alikes draped flowers around Brainy's neck. The second wrapped her arms around the boy's neck in a large, affectionate loop. As for Brainy himself, he had a huge smile on his face.

"Uh, I'm good," Brainy repeated. Helga grinned.

"Good luck!" Helga said with wink and a sly snap and point of her fingers. She had a hunch her old classmate would be just fine.

The Shortmans finished their chatter. A bag was grabbed from a shelf, and then the Shortmans were jogging along a path. Helga followed along behind them as they jogged through the city streets. They stopped by the waterway where Helga had first appeared in the city.

"Now, sweetheart, we'd like you to show us the secret passageway you used to get here!"

"Hm," Helga fidgeted. Her water-ride in here had been mostly all downhill. She did not know if there was a way up!

"We'd like for you to tell us all you know," said Stella casting her worried gaze back toward her husband Miles.

It was as Helga dwelt on the problem that a noise like explosions sounded in the City of the Green-Eyes. It was Eugene crashing the riverboat into the barricade that kept the city concealed. As the dust cloud rising over one part of the city settled, Helga stopped her run to stare. A broken but modern boat lay in the shallows, and there, standing on the tilted deck was a boy Helga had feared she would never see again. His hair was long, bushy, cow-licked, and gloriously yellow. He was unmistakeable.

"Arnold!" Helga yelled in her excitement. She waved from shore. Arnold peered out across the river from his place on the boat. He squinted. There was a bit of pink and gold.

"Helga?!" he said, his jaw dropping. Then Arnold leapt out of the ruined steamboat and began to slog to shore. He grinned when he saw the pink spot really was Helga. It really was her!

Helga spun in delight, then skipped down to the sandy shore. She leapt both feet first into the water and met Arnold halfway to the beach.

"Arnold!" she cried with delight. "I thought you were kidnapped!"

"I thought you were dead!" Arnold choked out. He wrapped his arms around Helga in a tight hug. "Helga! I'm so glad you're alright!" Arnold said affectionately. For once, Helga did not shove him. She gently pressed him back.

"How did you escape?" Helga asked, puzzled. She noticed his bleeding arm. "Arnold! You're bleeding!" she said. Arnold needed a bandage. So Helga pulled off her pink hair ribbon and wrapped it around his arm. In awe, Arnold touched the ribbon gently. He looked up at Helga, lost in a loving gaze.

The gaze of affection was so pure and so strong that Helga was astonished. She kept staring back at him and his open adoration. She didn't pull away when he held her hand. But she did stoop to pick up the remnants of her amulet when it fractured. Nor did she notice when a bit of green magic wafted away. It looped around Arnold's back and seeped into the ribbon now tied around Arnold's arm.

"Oops," Helga said, fishing the pieces back from the watery sand "These things must not be too durable!"

"Yeah," said Arnold pulling his from his pocket. "Mine broke, too."

"Shh!" said Helga pulling him close for a conspiratorial whisper. Her eyes roved back and forth, looking sneaky. "Just don't tell these people we broke their precious artifacts!"

"You mean… these really are!"

"The Green-Eyed people! Yup!" said Helga. "It seems that cockamany legend was true! That's not all I found though!" Helga smiled and lifted one hand out behind her. She stepped back and two people standing at the shoreline came into Arnold's view. It was Stella and Miles Shortman, clinging onto one another with tears in their eyes.

"Arnold?" says Stella speaking up at last. Arnold stared.

"Mom?"

"Son?" asked Arnold father. Slowly, as if afraid the image before him would disappear into a mirage, Arnold walked up to his parents.

"That hat!" said his father lifting the little blue cap off of Arnold's head. "I can't believe you've been wearing that hat!"

"All this time!" choked out Arnold as his parents viced him between them in an enormous hug.

"Oh, honey!" said Stella kneeling to get a better look at her son. Arnold's face was one of great happiness and peace. It was a touching moment as family reunited. Helga smiled a happy, sad sort of smile. She turned and walked away. Arnold had his parents back. His trademark blue hat had disappeared, perhaps forever. Was it time for her to disappear from his life, too?

Arnold was so happy with his parents that he did not notice how much Helga's mood had changed. There was so much to do! The Green-Eyes gave Arnold's classmates all a big dinner. When they had danced a bit, the Green-Eyes brought out a big canoe-like boat large enough for them all to fit on. Arnold's parents talked with the elders for a bit, then bowed and ushered the kids into the boat. It was time for them to finally return to civilization. Helga watched all the proceeding with a gloomy expression. She was startled when a small hand tugged on her white sleeve.

"Goddess Helga," said the little Green-Eyed girl whom had been her guide earlier. "I am to go with you. To guide the way. And bring back the boat."

"A tall order for such a little gal, but okay." Helga shrugged. "Suit yourself!"

This new jungle expedition, containing the Shortman family and all of Arnold's classmates except Brainy (whom everyone had forgotten about), loaded on the boat. They paddled up the river. There came the sound of a motor engine and everyone craned their necks. It was Edwardo in his jeep with Phoebe and Gerald in the back seat. They pulled over the side of the road with a loud screech.

"I can't believe it really is you!" said Edwardo giving Miles Shortman a hug. "I had given up all hope that you and Stella would be found!"

"It's good to see you, too, Edwardo," said Stella. "But for now we need to get these kids back to their teacher." She indicated the P.S. 118 kids. They piled into the jeep. But Gerald and Phoebe embraced Helga and Arnold.

"I was so worried for you, man!" said Gerald wiping a tear away. Phoebe just sobbed. Helga patted her back soundly.

"There, there, Phoebes. It all worked out in the end, didn't it? Thanks for coming out to look for me," she ended with a small smile.

When most of the kids had been squished onto the jeep in a very uncomfortable fashion, the Shortmans still stood beside the river. Arnold still stood beside them, with Helga loitering in the distance. Phoebe and Gerald chatted.

"I will be back for you soon, my friends!" Edward promised. But Stella held up a familiar object bundled in brown cloth.

"It might take us a day or two, friend!" said Miles, his hand on Stella's shoulder. "Before we left, we promised the Green-Eyes to do one last thing for them. They asked us to return this to the temple."

"Why don't the Green-Eyes return it to their own temple?" said Edwardo with doubt and annoyance. After all, his friends had only just gotten unlost. Miles shrugged.

"Something about Arnold returning it with his own hand. Arnold is sacred to them since our son was born in the temple." Edwardo adjusted his car mirror.

"Coming, little girl?" he said addressing Helga. But Arnold placed a hand firmly on Helga's shoulder. His eyes narrowed with a surprising expression- one of possessiveness.

"Helga's coming with us!" he demanded with a force to suggest there could be no argument.

"Hey! I'm sticking with you'all too!" Gerald exclaimed speaking up for him and Phoebe. Stella looked up toward Miles.

"I guess your little friends could come with us," said Stella. The little Green-Eyed girl whom had followed Helga nodded. She climbed back aboard the boat and poled it out into the river's current.

"Good luck, Goddess," she said with a small wave toward Helga before the ship moved far away. Helga turned back toward the Shortmans. It was awkward, but she couldn't believe her good luck. For a little while longer, she got to stay near Arnold!

"Well!" said Stella lifting up the Corizon. "We'd better get move on! It's a good day's hike from here! And judging by the sun, we'll need to make camp in a few hours."

"We'll get there," said Miles Shortman smiling at his wife. All they had to do now was take the Corizon to the temple. But little did they know that the adventure wasn't over yet!


	5. Chapter 5

Helga was NOT afraid of ghosts she told herself. Yet she shivered when she showed Miles and Stella the amulets she and Arnold had broken by accident. Miles recognized the amulets immediately and soon began a story about ghosts!

"Where did you get this?" he asked, the broken remnants in his hand. He looked toward Helga expectantly.

"I stole it off those two Cluck-for Brains working for La Sombra. They didn't give me any trouble, don't worry. Those two were too busy trying to figure out how to tie their own shoelaces to think about getting the amulets back."

"I think it's because they got captured by the Green-Eyed people when we crashed their boat into their city," Arnold interjected. "But they didn't find La Sombra. He escaped," Arnold said with a frown. It was part of the reason he was so anxious to keep those he cared about near him. He hoped the other P.S. 118 kids got back to civilization safely. Helga turned toward her golden-haired crush.

"Right, the evil one escaped. So we gotta watch our backs! But about the amulet…" Helga said with impatient gesture.

"The amulet," said Arnold's father scratching his chin. "La Sombra stole it from us the day we hid the Corizon. It's part of the reason the Green-Eyes insisted in locking us up in their city with them. For safety. At first Stella and I," said Miles casting a gaze toward his wife, "wore them. We thought they were a symbol of our acceptance into the Green-Eyed people. It turns out their first gift to us WAS. The amulets, their second gift, wasn't for us. Not exactly. It was for our son. They had taken the earthquake at our wedding as a sign that Stella was affected by the Statue of Corizon's 'magic'. Our first born child would then have the blessing of the Corizon. Have you ever heard the story of Quepunne-Za?" Miles asked his young and attentive audience of Phoebe, Gerald, Helga, and of course, Arnold.

"No!" Gerald squeaked out. Miles had his attention. Legends were exactly his sort of thing. He was the best keeper of urban myths Hillwood had ever seen.

"There exists with this Jungle a temple built by the Green-Eyes. Judging by the pictographs I have found on the temple walls, a real, living king called Quepunne-Za used to hold his court there. He was powerful leader and his rule was the height of their civilization. But then something changed. He got mixed up in a war with neighboring tribes led by his brother and a rival. After many epic battles, Quepunne-Za was eventually defeated. The city he ruled perished with him. The Jungle reclaimed the temple. The Green-Eyes were forced to move from a theocracy or religious government to a 'state' ruled by community elders. In order to feel that that the elders are appointed by divine means, every vacancy is filled according to lot, or gambling- an adaptation of their tradition of a dynasty!"

"So what does a dead king have to do with the amulet?" Helga demanded, shifting her weight down to the flats of her feet as she glared.

"The elders among the Green-Eyes explained to me once that it is their belief that these two amulets were once worn by the Jungle King and his Queen. Quepunne-Za's and his queen's restless spirits will take notice of anyone wearing them. The whole story of Quepunne-Za is a love tragedy. In it, Quepunne-Za lost not only his own life, but that of his queen, too. To this day, the Green-Eyes believe that the spirit of Quepunne-Za and his queen haunt the temple. The dynasty of kings among the Green-Eyed people ceased with Quepunne-Za. But the Green-Eyes continued to bring tribute to their leader's most sacred relic- the statue of Corizon. But there was more to it than that. The Green-Eyes believe in a balance between divinities. The sicknesses they have been suffering are signs to them that Quepunne-Za's rival, who is depicted as death in some legends, has too much influence at the moment. They would like someone to bring back the balance of nature by awakening Quepunne-Za and his queen, and bringing back the Corizon to its altar, so that they can reassert their authority on nature."

"Ew," said Helga glad that her amulet was broken. She almost shivered that she had been wearing such a thing! But then again, if it were true, it might have been a 'ghost' that saved her in the river. "Awaken a ghost?" Helga scoffed, folding her arms before her. "Who'd be stupid enough to do a thing like that?"

"Well," said Stella looking at Miles. "My husband, Miles and I tried to once. But La Sombra attacked us and stole the amulets. But not before we managed to hide the Corizon. For our safety, and to keep the location of the sacred statue a secret, the Green-Eyes closed off the city. They knew that if La Sombra had both us and the Amulets, he could make us reveal the Corizon which is a sacred object to them!"

"What about the sickness?" said Arnold with wide eyes of concern. Stella looked sad.

"Well, Miles and I have done our best with what medicine we've been able to make for them. But the sleeping sickness comes back again and again and when it does, the Green-Eyes do lose some of its people. But we do our best to cure all we can!"

"That's really sad," said Arnold. "Are you sure you're ready to leave the Green-Eyes? They need you." Miles and Stella looked at one another with a tender grin. Arnold was just so sweet!

"Ah, but we have you again, honey! We have to put you first! When we get to San Lorenzo, we'll ask for them to send another doctor. Perhaps the Green-Eyes will learn to trust them as they learned to trust us."

"Yeah," said Arnold uncertainly. He was lost deep in thought.

"What's the matter, man?" asked Gerald slapping his shoulder to get his attention. Arnold rolled his eyes backwards toward his fellow junior crowd.

"It's just that La Sombra told me a legend, too. He said that, a long time ago, the Green Eyes worshipped a spirit- Quepunne-Za- the deity of fire, the magma of the earth, and the sun. He fell in love with a woman and made her an immortal like him. But the deity of death was angry, so he killed Quepunne-Za's true love. Quepunne-Za fought the deity of death for his queen's soul. When he found it, Quepunne-Za bound it to him so that he would not lose it again. But he and his queen were now, well dead, so the Green-Eyes made a statue, the Corizon, to house his spirit in! Occasionally, a piece of Quepunne-Za was 'reborn to search for a vessel for his maiden's soul'. That last part is especially creepy."

"Why?" asked Gerald.

"Well," said Arnold. "Just think about it! What if I'm the one they're talking about? What if all my life, I've been possessed by a tiny piece of a ghost?"

"I don't know, man," said Gerald. "You seem normal to me!"

"And what about that last part? About finding a vessel for his maiden's soul? I don't know… I just get this feeling that maybe it means the ghost wants to possess Helga, too. She was wearing one of the amulets! Maybe she should have gone with Edwardo!"

"Arnold, man," Gerald tried to console his friend. "The amulets are broken now, aren't they! Just toss them both into the jungle and be done with them!"

"Yeah!" said Arnold feeling inspired by Gerald's suggestion. He pulled the first amulet out of his pocket, then ran over toward Helga. He tugged on her wrist, turning Helga's lost attention toward him immediately.

"Helga, this is really important! Can I see that amulet you found?"

"Sure thing, Football-Head," said Helga turning the amulet over. Arnold grinned.

"Great! Thanks!" he scooted over toward the steepest edge of the hillside and with a deep breath, hurled them out and down into the forest canopy. He grinned. Gerald grinned with him.

"See now? No ghosts!" Gerald declared.

"Gerald, you don't even believe in ghosts," said Arnold.

"Oh, no! I do!" said Gerald. "Ever since I stayed over at your house and saw old Four-Eyed Jack with my own two eyes!"

"You were dreaming, Gerald," said Arnold.

"Yes, I guess I was," Gerald agreed at last, shaking with laughter. "But was Big Ceasar all a lie? Do me a favor. When your parents get to this creepy old temple let's all stay outside!"

"I hear ya!" said Arnold in total agreement.

Traveling through the jungle was nothing like a taking a walk in Hillwood's park. There were so many huge trees to walk around and so many half-rotted logs with new saplings growing on them, that even in the best of places, the forest floor was an obstacle course. In places with more sun, plant life grew up into a lurid maze of a thousand shades of green. Birds mocked the jungle-goers as they fretted on finding the way.

Miles Shortman cleaved some of the dense growth with a brush ax so that they might continue forward. At long last, when the sun began to inch uncomfortably close to the edge of the sun, they stopped. Stella and Miles declared camp for the night.

"Here, honey," said Stella making a bed up between her and Miles for Arnold. "Would you like to sleep between us? That way we can be sure no wild animal bothers you!" Arnold rolled his eyes over towards his friends. Gerald was looking at him funny- like he had been offered bunny pajamas. Helga meantime, was staring over her shoulder into the woods. The mention of wild animals had unnerved her. A jaguar roared somewhere off in the distance and she bumped shoulders with Phoebe.

"No thanks, Mom," said Arnold giving his parents a hug for no reason. "I'd like to stay with my friends," he explained. He needed to speak to Gerald and Phoebe. Besides, the sight of Helga looking so depressed and frightened had Arnold worried.

"Phoebe? Gerald?" he said to his old school companions. "I'm really glad you came with us. I'm really glad you found Edwardo, too. Ever since the other kids and I got kidnapped, well, I was wondering if I'd ever get part of my old life back. I came here to the jungle hoping to find my parents but I almost lost everything instead. It's been...harrowing," said Arnold rubbing his cheek for a moment and remembering how scared he had been when La Sombra had held him prisoner. But with luck, that was the last he would ever see of the villain. He, his friends, and his family would get back to San Lorenzo and fly home to civilization, far way from river pirates!

"Tell us all about it, man!" said Gerald, sensing a story. So Arnold sat down and told his friends all about the adventures he had been through. Phoebe gasped and Gerald almost cussed during the tale.

"There's one thing I don't get!" said Phoebe looking up at her best friend, Helga, as she stared off into the jungle with her arms crossed, pretending not to listen. "If Helga got thrown into a raging river full of crocodiles, how did she survive? Helga, what happened to you!?" Phoebe addressed her old friend directly. Helga stopped pretending she wasn't listening and turned around.

"It wasn't anything I did, Phoebes," said Helga waving her hands around. "I just went with it. Something…. maybe it was magic or maybe it wasn't… just sort of carried me downriver in a hurry. The crocodiles never even noticed me! Nope, I climbed out of the river down aways and found this temple with boat in it!" said Helga sweeping her hand along as her story reached its halfway point. All the really dramatic stuff was done.

"So, I took the boat!" Helga explained as logic. "The boat brought me to the city of the Green-Eyed people. They gave me a little snack, played some music, carved a giant statue of me and then I bumped into Arnold's parents! We were just about to go find the old Football-Head when he showed up himself. Crashed a boat and everything! I was so surprised he got away from La Sombra!" said Helga casting a gaze toward Arnold that was surprisingly tender. Her mouth curled into a soft smile. Arnold stared back at her, savoring in Helga's expression. He remembered the locket with his picture in it Helga had dropped when she had knocked from the cliff. He almost offered it back to her. But he stopped himself. No, Arnold decided, he would give Helga's locket back to her only when they had the time for a long, private talk! There were so many things he had to say!

Arnold's parents built a small campfire. They ate a meal made from supplies brought from the city of the Green-Eyes so it was a little strange. But it was not untasty. For dessert, Miles and Stella offered the children fruit they had picked during the hike. Helga stared at one of the fruits, peeled it, then smashed it into a pulp in a cup with the back of her spoon. When she was done, it looked more like a pudding.

"Oh, that looks good!" said Arnold sitting down next to her. Helga blushed.

"Would you like to try some?" she offered. Helga shoved the cup at him and Arnold dipped the spoon into it.

"Umm. Good! said Arnold taking three huge gulps. Helga frowned.

"HEY!" she complained, giving his arm a gentle shove. "Don't eat it all!"

"Oh, sorry," said Arnold. In the firelight his gold hair had dulled to a brown. He dipped the spoon into the cup of mashed fruit once more and spun it around.

"Would you… like a bite?" Arnold asked timidly. He blinked when Helga mildly opened her mouth and accepted the spoonful. He finished off the cup by feeding it to Helga with a dopey smile. Gerald and Phoebe, meanwhile, pretended not to notice their friend's sudden display of affection.

"Well, that's all right," said Helga, her eyes rolled off into a corner pretending she had not enjoyed the interchange. "Too bad I don't have a toothbrush, though! It's been days! Wait a minute!" said Helga with sudden inspiration. She fumbled through her pocket.

"Drat," she said examining a damp packet of mint-flavored chewing gum. "Must have gotten wet when I dunked in that river! But seeing as I already drank some of it, a little more won't hurt!" said Helga tossing one of the gum sticks into her mouth.

"Um, Helga? Can I have one of those?" Arnold pleaded. He carefully avoided Helga's fingertips as she handed him a stick. He unwrapped the foil and threw the gum into his mouth.

"Sorry it ain't bubblegum," said Helga. Arnold shook his head.

"Nah. This is better. But there is something I want to say to you. You know, Helga, for a few hours there, well I thought you were dead! It was terrible. All I could think about was that I'd failed you. That if somehow… I had been more useful you wouldn't have fought the river pirates all on your own! I was so relieved when I found out you were alive!" Arnold ended awkwardly. But Helga turned away.

"Yeah, it was funny how it turned out. I mean, when I got lost in the river, I figured no one would ever go looking for me. Maybe no one would even care. It's not like anyone ever cared before!" Helga wrapped both arms around her shoulders. The cold in her heart made her wonder if her family back home in Hillwood would even have asked what had happened to her when she didn't come home from the field trip. Her soul was scarred with past wounds, and her new fear that she would lose Arnold to a new life with his parents. But Arnold's loving gaze turned peevish. His hands darted out to take Helga's shoulders on either side.

"Helga!" Arnold almost growled out. "Helga, look at me! I never want you to say something like that!"

"Why not? No one missed me," said Helga trying to shrug him off. But Arnold did not let go.

"I missed you Helga!" said Arnold. "Now promise me you'll never say something like that again!"

"All right, all right I promise!" said Helga. Arnold relaxed his grip and she swept his hand from her arm. Helga's large, wide, sad eyes gazed into the firelight instead.

"Say, Arnold? After all this, where will you go? Will you be going back to your Grandpa's house?" she asked him. Arnold's eyes startled wide.

"I… I don't know. I hope so. But no matter what, we'll keep in touch! I promise, Helga!" He said clasping one of Helga's hands in one of his own. Helga held onto it like a lifeline. She forced a small smile onto her lips.

"Ahem!" said Gerald clearing his throat. "Don't y'all worry so much! My main man, here, won't skip town on my permission! Plus if you did, Phoebe and I would keep an eye on the old girl for you!"

"That's right," said Phoebe with a tear in her eye. She launched herself onto Helga for a hug. "We're friends, Helga! Friends forever!"

"Well, gee, thank you Phoebes!" said Helga feeling a little embarrassed for her outburst. But she felt a little better.

"I won't disappear on you, Helga," insisted Arnold. "Even if I was forced to go, well, I'd write you letters once a week. I'd call or something. We're friends!" Helga stared. The warm wave of friendship coming from Arnold, Phoebe, and even Gerald of all people, was almost too much for her battered heart to take in. Yet she smiled.

"Yeah," she said turning on her arrogant side again. "Yeah, you better, Arnoldo!" she said pointing. Arnold smiled. It was much better to see Helga ranting than depressed.

"Cheer up, Pataki,"' said Gerald offering Helga one of the blankets they had carried with them from the city of the Green-Eyed people. Folded over, it was a lot like a sleeping bag. "Once you get a good night's rest you'll be back to your normal, butt-kicking self!" Gerald gave the girl an encouraging smile. After all, even if he did not like Helga for all the grief he caused to his friend, he respected her for the times she came through. She was a renegade champion. She was self-appointed captain of their sports team; the leader of rebellion within their classroom. Long story short, the head-strong girl was not always a bad thing. Gerald just hoped she would learn to treat his best friend better. But after hearing what she had just gone through to try to rescue Arnold from La Sombra, Gerald was inclined to be warmer to her. Then there was Phoebe, too. Gerald's sweetheart clung to the side of her best friend, Helga.

"Here, Helga!" said Phoebe taking the blanket from Helga. "Let me set this up for you! If I flatten the ground here, it will be much more level and more comfortable for you!" said Phoebe in the vein of perfectionism. She swept all the sticks and stones away and covered the ground with soft fill. Helga was touched. Obedient to her friend's attentions, she lay down in her blanket.

"Thanks, Phoebes!" said Helga. She pretended to go to sleep.

But the jungle noises still scared Helga. When she heard snoring, Helga opened her eyes wide. The stars hung in the jungle sky and there were trees crowding these stars like a picture frame. A soft, night wind flickered. It felt good. It diminished some of the jungle's heat, yet Helga shivered all the same. Her ears trained on the jungle's sounds. She sat up in fear when she heard that jaguar again.

"Helga?" came a sudden, unexpected sound. It was Arnold. It seemed the boy had not gone to sleep either.

"What are you doing up, Football-Head?" she scoffed. Arnold shrugged.

"Just thinking, I guess. I've just got my parents back! It's all so new to me, I guess. I.. don't know exactly what to say to them. I guess I want to show them Hillwood. I want Grandma and Grandpa to meet them.. well again. Then I'll find out… my future I guess. It's funny. Getting my parents back is supposed to be all a good thing. But it's a challenge I guess. Everything is going to change. I guess I never really thought about that!"

"Uh-huh," said Helga not really wanting to talk about Arnold's parents. She already had her own fears that the frequent camaraderie she and Arnold had shared together throughout all of grade school was about to be interrupted. She shivered, both from that thought and the continuing eerie sounds of jungle animals. The jungle chorus seemed to get even louder.

"EEEI!" Helga squealed out at last. A small rodent had scurried out of the jungle and for a moment it almost looked like a rat. She back-pedaled into Arnold. He folded one arm across Helga as she trembled.

"Geeze!" Helga muttered when at last the rodent had gone. "This place is like a nightmare! No lights, no walls, no hotels, and no rat-traps!"

"And no microwave popcorn, either?" said Arnold with a sly grin. "Come on, Helga, we've got the moon and the stars!"

"You know how I feel about that," said Helga narrowing her eyes. "They're no substitute for fluorescent lighting." Arnold shrugged.

"Well, since I'm up anyways, I can keep an eye on you. I'll make sure no mice crawl across your feet or anything. Sound good?"

"S...sss..sure, Football-Head," said Helga laying down on the ground beside Arnold. She bunched her blanket all around her. She was startled when she felt a hand brush across the top of her head. Arnold was humming.

"What's that?" said Helga stiffening. Arnold's hand paused on her bangs.

"Just a lullaby," he whispered across their campsite.

"Hm," said Helga. She had half a mind to tell him off. But it felt good, and her eyelids drooped. As the last bit of consciousness left her before dreams, Helga felt more than hear a few words chanted softly near her.

"You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. You make me happy, when skies are gray. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. Please don't take.. my sunshine… away." Arnold fretted. It was a long ways they had to go yet, and somewhere in that jungle was not only a haunted temple, but the man Arnold had dueled with a real sword only today. La Sombra.


	6. Chapter 6

"Hm, yum, stupid Football Head," Helga muttered and hugged her pillow tighter. It smelled extra sweet today. So desirable, so.. Arnold. If only she could keep dreaming of her secret love-god all day!

"Helga. Helga!" was Phoebe's insistent whisper. Helga blinked. For a moment she thought she might be back in her old room in Hillwood. Surely, Phoebe's voice meant they had held one of their sleepovers. Funny, Helga couldn't remember that happening yesterday! All she could remember was…

"Oh my gosh!" said Helga shooting up to a sitting position. She remembered the jungle in one blurry, startled moment. But as she woke her pillow resented being dropped so unceremoniously.

"Ow," Arnold muttered in his sleep. Helga gasped and covered her heart with both hands. The pillow she had been clutching had been… Arnold?! Thank goodness he had still been asleep!

"HELGA!" came Phoebe's insistent whisper. She made a motioning finger for Helga to come towards her. Helga knelt on the blanket to crawl towards Phoebe. But her renewed motion caused one hazy, golden eye to pop open for a mere second. The eye shut again and Arnold's hand surprised Helga instead. It shot out and grabbed her by the shoulder. It yanked Helga down and towards his chest, while simultaneously, Arnold rolled over in his sleep to pin Helga by his side. His other hand draped lazily across her waist.

"Hm, Helga!" Arnold muttered barely coherent in his sleep. " I wanna sleep in! I've got the day off today. The car needs gas," Arnold mumbled as his mind lived out some dream world. The real Helga of the here and now, meanwhile, scrunched up as small as she could. Helga was certain she was going to die of embarrassment any minute. Sooner or later, anyone in the campsite other than Phoebe would wake up and see the predicament she was in! Helga gritted her teeth.

"Sorry, Arnoldo, but I've got to do this to you! Wake up!" Helga hissed. She squirmed just enough out of Arnold's grip to turn around to face the boy. Helga flicked Arnold's large round nose for especial emphasis. Then she gave his face a light slap.

"Helga!" said Arnold, waking with wrath. "I said I'm sleeping! Oh!" the boy said realizing the position they were in. He had turned and was holding Helga by her shoulders beneath him. He blushed.

"Heh..Heh..Helga!" The boy sputtered before scooting rapidly away. "I am SO sorry! I never meant…"

"Chill it, Arnoldo," said Helga taking firm command of the situation. With a lie. "You didn't do anything! You just got mad when I flicked your nose. Remind me never to wake you up that way again!" said Helga standing. She turned her back to him as if she could not care about anything.

"So are we going to eat breakfast today, or what? Phoebe?" Helga said looking towards her favorite female friend. Phoebe adjusted her glasses. She still blushed from what she had seen, but Phoebe recovered quickly.

"Arnold's parents haven't woken up yet," Phoebe muttered. 'Thank goodness', she thought to herself. "I was merely going to use the err… lavatories and I did not feel comfortable going by myself. Helga? Might I borrow you for a minute?"

"Sure thing, Phoebes," said Helga. She gestured towards the woods.

"Well, we're off to use the can! Football-Head..." Helga ended with a gentle inflection to her voice. Her insult had become a pet word again, rippling with affection. Arnold sighed with the heavy loss of her from his arms. The dream he had dreamt of Helga and him sleeping comfortably together in a house by the seashore had seemed so real. Arnold had to look down at himself to remind himself that he was only twelve years old. He did not have an office job to go to. There was no car and definitely no ocean out their bedroom window. Little did Arnold know that Helga hugging him during sleep all last night had inspired his dreams. He had dreamt being hugged because someone had. Meanwhile, out in the brush of the jungle, Phoebe turned on Helga with an angry whirl.

"What was that Helga!" The meek voiced, but spirited girl scolded her best friend. "If you carry on like that your infatuation with, well, icecream might not go so well!"

"I've got it covered, Phoebes," said Helga with more confidence than she felt. "Old Football-Head won't know what a good thing he had goin' for him! And neither will his parents," Helga said, her words now tempered with affliction. Because as nice as Stella and Miles Shortman were, they were too good. Goodie Two-Shoes even. The way they looked toward Arnold was the way one looked at an infant. Not a boy about to leave elementary school for middle school. Not a child about to turn thirteen and from there, a true teenager. Of course Helga could not blame them. It had been years since they had last seen their still diapered son. But Helga could not see a trace of that infant in him. She never had. Just as she had always seen herself as a woman, she had always seen within Arnold a man. A short man, granted, but with every day his legs were growing a little longer. It might not be longer before his height could compete with her own.

"Don't worry, Phoebes!" Helga pressed more to make sure Phoebe did not let anything slip than to convince her. "I'll keep my hands off the old Football-Head!" Phoebe regarded her, half-convinced. After all, she knew what a temptation Arnold was to Helga. Her crush for him had been long-lived.

Breakfast was subdued among them. It lacked the jovialness of the meal the night before. Arnold did not spoon-feed Helga this time. Instead, he gazed at her from his place of banishment, a seat beside Gerald across the campsite. The log he and Gerald had for their sofa was not uncomfortable but the distance Phoebe and Helga had interposed between them was. Arnold blushed again as he remembered what might have made Phoebe glare at him as if he had walked into her shower.

But Arnold could not feel the silence for long. His parents were awake now, after all, and they fussed over him, glowing. Arnold met his mother's face with his own with a brief nuzzle. He had seen the gesture between Gerald and his mother. It was awkward but pleasing to try it with his own.

"Mom!" the words slipped out regardless. "I'm almost thirteen! This November, I'll be thirteen!" Six months from now, and he'd have both a birthday and a whole new school to go to. I'd be against his pride as a middle-schooler to be treated like a gradeschooler. Yet Arnold smiled at his mother, Stella, just them same.

"Oh! You've grown up so fast!" His mother said with tears in her eyes. She reached down and cuddled her son once more before reluctantly stepping back. She enfolded her arm with that of Miles as they studied the knot of school-aged children.

"So," said Gerald making a survey of the camp's occupants of his own. His fist lifted up to rest against his waist as his eyebrow quirked. "Did you hit on my girlfriend, or something, Arnold?" Gerald said in jest. "You two are acting weird, man!"

"Gerald!" Arnold sputtered, knocking over his breakfast so that it split from his lap. "Of course not!"

"I'm just saying. You have a reputation, you know. You've been around the neighborhood a time or two."

"Gerald! I can't believe you'd say that in front of my parents!" Arnold protested. He rolled his eyes back towards a puzzled and frowning Stella and Miles. Gerald had gone and done it now. He'd blown his 'good boy' cover out of the water.

"Alright, alright man," said Gerald in a tone of voice he hoped would be pacifying. "Calm down, man. I was only messin' with you! Besides, someone's got to set your parents straight or they'll be giving you a tricycle for Christmas." Gerald went back to his meal in silence. Arnold rolled his eyes.

"Look, Phoebe. Helga. I'm sorry for...err, embarrassing you two when you were off to use the toilet. Okay?" But Phoebe had not been paying attention to Arnold speak. She had been busy looking into a small hole in the ground. In the growing daylight, she uncovered what looked like a sword.

"Look, Arnold!" Phoebe said puzzling over her find. She pried the sword free of the jungle earth with a loud growl. Then she gasped, because the hand and skull of a skeleton had been revealed also.

"Hm," said Miles Shortman kneeling on the ground and feeling the earth with his fingers. "There must have been quicksand here once, when there was water. But this area had long since filled in and dried. Looks like a conquistador." Phoebe studied the sword in her hand with fervor. She tested the metal with one hand.

"The flexibility is still sound!" she almost called out with astonishment. "With only a little polishing, this historic artifact could be…"

"Sold to a museum?" prompted Gerald. He shrugged and grinned when Phoebe narrowed her eyes at him.

"No! Put into a prize collection! My father might like this sword. It has historical significance, not to mention unparalleled craftsmanship! True, the conquistadors were bloody persons with a markedly tyranical legacy, but my father is a top-rated champion of the fencing world. This sword is a pre-relic of the fencing sports, in a sense."

"So are you, Phoebe," said Arnold with a smile smile. "A fencing champion, I mean." He lent forward, his hands on both knees. The boy was relieved things had gotten friendly among them all once again.

"Yeah," said Gerald a little nervous around his girlfriend while she was holding cold, murderous steel in her hand. As if to prove his point, there was a rustling in the bushes. Phoebe pointed the sword in the direction of the noise. There was a soft, "Cheep!" Helga's eyes bulged.

"I've got this, Phoebes," Helga said marching forward. Helga paused, and made a martial arts pose in front of a sapling. Then, with a flip no one knew Helga was capable of, she slammed both feet high up on tree trunk. The jolt dislodged a monkey from the tree and it ran, screaming, away. Gerald watched the fierce encounter with a blink.

"Man," said Gerald leaning over and whispering in Arnold's ear. "Do you wanna trade girlfriends?" Arnold's eyes were deadpanned. (*Author note: deadpanned means careful pretense of seriousness or calm detachment; impassive or expressionless. Think of how Arnold looked when coach Wittenburg told Arnold, his past wedding's bestman, to never to get married during the episode where Arnold is in a swim team. Same look.)

"Why don't I hold onto that for you, young lady?" said Miles Shortman to Phoebe. But Phoebe rearranged her glasses.

"With all due respect, sir, I feel more secure in this untamed wilderness if I have a weapon to defend myself. Don't worry. Arnold's right. I have master swordman certification." It was clear that no one was going to get the sword away from Phoebe.

"Okay," said Miles Shortman at a loss. He took a metal compass from his back and studied it instead.

"If my memory is correct, the temple should be five hours walk from here. We'll get there before noon!" Miles Shortman returned the compass to his pocket. Arnold smiled.

"I'll be able to see the temple where I was born!" the boy said before his face fell. "I just hope it isn't haunted."

"Me, either man," said Gerald appearing with several blanket rolls strapped to his back. Arnold used cloth straps to tie two tightly bound blankets to his own back so that he looked like Gerald. Miles and Stella were both weighed down with bags. Luckily for Helga and Phoebe, the young girls of their group did not have to take anything.

"Let's go, man," said Gerald with a hand on his best friend's shoulder as they looked ahead into the jungle that awaited them.


	7. Chapter 7

Several hours along the overgrown jungle trail had Arnold and Gerald both ready for a break. Arnold put his hands on his knees and panted. The intense jungle heat had slicked back his hair with sweat. Insects buzzed so loudly on the trees all around him Arnold nearly had to shout to be heard.

"I'm almost out of water," Arnold said sloshing his canteen. "How about you, Gerald?" By the looks of things, his friend was just as sweaty as he.

"I've got a few swallows. Don't look at me for a refill! Go ask your parents," said Gerald pointing his thumb in his parents direction. Arnold walked up toward Stella and Miles. There was a touch both of eagerness and hesitation in his walk, for being with his parents was new for Arnold.

"Mom? Dad? Do you have more water? I mean, for my canteen?"

"Aww! We'll have to boil some when we stop for lunch, sweetie," said Stella pausing to snuggle Arnold. She held the boy at arms length and looked down at him. "Do you need to stop now?"

"No, I can go on! I'm just not used to all this humidity, is all. It's hot!"

"That's why this place is called a jungle after all!" said Miles with a smile. Arnold frowned. Saying that was not going to make it any cooler. Especially since it was approaching mid-day. Thoughtful, Arnold walked back toward the center of their group. His question had paused them all for a moment and so he took the time to visit Phoebe and Helga.

"Are you two alright? Helga?" Arnold asked with wide eyes. He yearned to reach out and touch her hand with his, but for the moment, he refrained. Helga was looking especially proud of herself.

"I'm doing fantastic, Football-Head," said Helga. Her long legs, determination, and boundless stamina were holding out pretty well. "Only," she ended placing a hand on her stomach. "I'm getting pretty hungry. When do we break for food?"

"I've got a Mr. Nutty Bar in my pocket!" said Phoebe helpfully. Her face fell as she looked more closely at it. "Only it's gotten a little melted."

"Hand it over, Phoebes!" Helga demanded. "No sense letting good food go to waste! Melted or not…" Helga carefully peeled part of of wrapper off and licked the melted candy off. Arnold stared.

"Err, Mom, Dad? I guess we really should stop for lunch now. Helga's hungry."

"If you need to stop, we'll stop," said Miles. He took his shoulder pack down and lay it on the ground to open it. He set up battered pot to boil drinking water in. Meanwhile, Stella gave Arnold a bowl full of what looked like a dry granola mix made from local ingredients. Arnold brought it over to Helga immediately and placed it in her hands. Helga's large, wondering eyes stared back into his tender ones. Then she looked down into her bowl.

"Wow," said Helga. "Mr. Simmons would be proud of these two. Au natural! No boxed macaroni for these guys!"

"It's a little hard to get store food in the middle of a jungle, Helga," Arnold returned with a small smile. "I'm sure if they get out the jungle, they'll be a little more normal. My parents, I mean."

"Whatever you say, Arnoldo," said Helga. She crunched down half of the food before pushing it away.

"Helga?" Arnold asked looking at her uneaten food. "Are you sure you've had enough to eat? Maybe we can find you something else…"

"No, I'm fine, Arnoldo. Thanks for asking." At this, Helga guzzled down the last of her water from a ceramic flask that had been a gift from the Green-Eyed people. It was incised with pictograms and brushed with a thin slip of gold on the lip. The supplies the Green-Eyes had given them along with the boat ride had been a thoughtful gift indeed. Still, Helga rummaged through her pocket and sighed. She shook her head.

"One last piece of gum!" Helga lamented biting off half in her mouth. "Want some?" She said offering the second half to Arnold. He took it and flipped it into his mouth.

"Thanks."

"Say, where did your Dad go?"

"To get water, I guess."

"Are you sure he's gonna be alright, there, Arnold? I mean the guy has walked into tree branches three times today."

"Helga…" Arnold rebuked in mild irritation. He knew it was true, but it was embarrassing.

"Okay, okay! No need to get worked up, Arnold. I'm only saying." Helga soothed before she and Arnold fell into a companionable silence instead. Both of their minds were filled with thoughts that had yet to be worked out. Silence, not words, felt the most filling.

Stella Shortman was still with them, as were Gerald and Phoebe. But no one seemed to be much in the mood for conversation. They were all too focused on waiting for Miles Shortman to come back to camp with a kettle of water to be boiled for drinking. Gerald lent on his arms and sighed, his head in his hands.

"What I wouldn't give now for a Yahoo soda," Gerald lamented. Phoebe sighed, too.

"I concur. Sadly this region lacks the appropriate vending machines. Or a grocer."

"When I get out of the jungle, I'm never setting foot in nature again!" Gerald complained loudly. He flicked a beetle off his red shirt sleeve.

"I don't know," said Arnold looking at the lush leaves all around him. "I think nature is kind of beautiful. Peaceful. A little inconvenient, yes, but beautiful." Then, much nearer than ever before, that jaguar roared again. Everyone in the campsite, jumped.

"You call that, beautiful, Football-Head?" Helga squeaked hiding behind Arnold as her eyes darted. "We might become lunchmeat any second!"

"Well, we'd better hurry to that temple," said Arnold. Maybe a haunted temple was less to be feared after all. It was better than being devoured by wild animals.

Miles Shortman returned to the campsite then, carrying a large pail of water. This he set over the fire Stella had kindled. The adult couple conversed quietly for a few minutes with many nods.

As soon as the canteens were filled, they pressed on. Excitement built when Miles pointed out their first stone pillar, like a lamp post without a lantern. A road of carefully lain, grey, stone block welcomed them to a ziggurat of huge stone blocks cloaked by creeping vines. A moat of swiftly flowing water passed around the temple and under a bridge along the ancient road they journeyed. Miles Shortman pointed ahead of them.

"Look, son!" He said pausing to hug Arnold around the shoulder. "The temple where you were born! Do you see that?"

"Er. Yeah," said Arnold. He squirmed slightly for being here already filled him with a slight feeling of uneasiness. Who knows what they would find within?

Still, Arnold tiptoed along behind his parents and poked his head into one of the open doorways. The interior was fashioned all from stone block. There was not a trace of wood or cloth or plastic or metal within. But a matching doorway on the room's other side let in fresh air and sun. It softened the space so that it did not look too terrifying. That, and two pots of flowers on a stone platform helped. Arnold swiveled his head all around him. There was a pair of steps leading downward into the darkness below them and he hoped they would not have to go down there. Having mastered his fear, Arnold swept his eyes away from the stairs. He shifted his eyes away from his parents, also, for they were sharing a romantic moment, muttering about how adorable Arnold had been when he had been born. HIs cheeks flushed red in shame.

"So," Arnold said obtaining his parents attention at last. "Where does the statue of Corizon go?" His father still had it in his pack. Returning the statue was the entire reason they had come here.

"Well, Arnold," said his father. "We never actually found the room it is supposed to go in. We've heard descriptions of it. It's my theory that it's somewhere in the catacombs below."

"Catacombs?" Said Gerald freezing up in disgust. "As in dead people? I'm stayin' right up here!"

"Yes. You children stay up here by the doorway. Miles and I will explore the catacombs," said Stella lighting a torch. She dropped to her knees beside her son.

"We'll be right back, Arnold," Stella said looking deep into his green eyes. Arnold nodded.

Stella and Miles took the dark stairway Arnold had found foreboding. He hoped that nothing bad would happen while he and his friends waited for their return. But while they waited, Arnold took up one of the many torches from the bundle his parents had opened. He lit it and then lifted it up against the face of the temple walls. There were pictures all over the stone, especially of an football shaped eye. But it lacked the single eyebrow. That was depicted separately on a woman knee deep in a river. Her hair was long enough to reach the river's surface and her hand was outstretched toward some of the many water creatures surrounding her, like playful river dolphins, crocodiles, fish, and wading birds. Above her head was a cloud of tiny sparrows.

"H'm," said Gerald looking at the unusual stone mural. "Must be that Jungle Queen! Looks like the poor girl had all sorts of problems goin' for her. She's got a monobrow goin' like Helga's."

"Hey, knock it off!" Helga admonished. In protest, she gave the back of Gerald's leg a tiny kick so that he hopped. "I can hear you, you know! And if you're not careful, the ghost will too!"

"Ghost?!" Gerald panicked before recovering. "Nah!" The boy said with a wave. "There ain't no ghost. It's all superstition to scare the layman." Still, mention of spirits had made them all a little jumpy. So when Arnold's torch burnt out, they all moved their investigation to the sun-filled door instead.

"Wow," Arnold said taking in a deep breath. The landscape rolled away from the temple beautifully. A small waterfall spilt along a jagged cliff at the end of a long garden full of animal and plant sculptures.

"The Green Eyes must still come here," Arnold said placing his hand on a stone shaped like boar guarding the entranceway in which they stood.

"Or it's the sheep," said Gerald pointing to some animals.

"Ah, Gerald, those aren't sheep," said Arnold squinting.

"Llamas, then?"

"Tapirs! They're tapirs! Sheesh!" Helga spouted impatiently. "Haven't either of you ever picked up a magazine? Sheesh!"

"Right. Some weird, freaky kind of jungle animal. Man I can't wait to get back home to Hillwood," Gerald remarked. He squinted at the tapirs some more, then lept when a fierce roar rang out. The tapirs all lifted their heads and ran away. Two full grown jaguars prowled to the water's edge, then sniffed it before taking a drink. Then they lifted their heads to stare towards the temple.

"Jaguars are carnivores, man!" Gerald said clenching Arnold's shirt. "If your parents don't get back soon, they're gonna eat us!"

"Take it easy, Gerald!" Said Arnold. "Panicking is not going to help us! Let's just try to meet up with my parents. They can't have gone too far."

"In there?" said Gerald biting his nails.

"I concur," said Phoebe from behind Gerald. "Even with this sword, I could not fare well in a battle with two fully grown carnivorous beasts."

"Sure, sure, like she said. Lead the way, Arnold!" Gerald lifted a hand to beg him to go first. Arnold took a deep breath.

"Alright. Mom, Dad?" He called softly down the stairway. Arnold tested the stone with his foot. A short staircase led down to a number of side rooms. Stella had lit several lanterns so that the stone floor surrounding the flight of steps did not look so frightening. She came out of one of the side rooms at Arnold's insistent voice.

"Kids, what's wrong?" She asked as Phoebe, Gerald, Helga, and Arnold clumsily made their way down the stone stair. She looked at their worried faces.

"Giant cats!" Gerald said making a face and squenching his face up with disgust.

"Local indigenous wildlife," said Phoebe.

"Sharp pointy teeth that could mince us all into hamburger!" said Helga making a jaws impersonation with her hands.

"Helga, you're not helping," Arnold put mildly. They did not need to panic more. She shrugged. Miles Shortman came around the bend, holding a torch, too, and stood beside Stella.

"Then let's all stick together," he said placing a hand on his wife's shoulder. She nodded and held out her hand. "Come here, kids," she invited.

Phoebe reciprocated the gesture. But at that very same moment a soft, high-pitched squeak caught Helga's ear. "A rat!" Helga screamed. With surprising swiftness she leapt up into Arnold's arms and he held her aloft, much as he had in the cave on Elk Island. Helga's arms were looped round his neck and his arms holding her firmly under her knees and around her back.

But the combined weight of the two children was too much for the particular stone it was their misfortune to be on. It slid and Arnold and Helga found themselves traveling down a small, narrow, hidden shute. Arnold's torch bounced then rolled on the ground before them but did not go out. He set Helga on his feet to lift it.

"Arnold! Arnold!" They heard cries from above. "Son!"

"I'm alright!" Arnold shouted back up the ramp they had followed. "We're alright! Can you pull us out?"

"Wait right there!" Miles commanded. Arnold waited, and a light appeared near them beyond a hole (an ancient air vent) just large enough for a children to crawl through. Mile's face appeared.

"Come here! Come here son!" He beckoned. Arnold breathed a sigh of relief. But his eyes flashed on the room they had come to.

"Wait a sec," Arnold muttered out loud lifting his torch. "Mom, Dad, I think we've found, well, a king's throne-room."

There was no better term for the enormous room. A broad hall led in one direction, while in another, a man made pool of water backdropped an enormous stone couch. Bits of light sunk into the room from glassless windows far overhead. These bits of light then refracted off the mirrored surface of the water, leading the sun-glow up the wall again as the reflected shivers of barely moving water. Arnold looked deep down into the pool expecting some great mystery, but all he saw was water.

"Arnold?" Said Gerald having crawled into the room through the air vent. Phoebe followed him as he stood up to brush his sleeve. "What are you doing, here? Let's go…" Gerald began. But he and Phoebe both gasped and pointed behind them. Arnold had paused in a place where the light cast his shadow on the wall. Only, the shadow of Arnold Shortman shot up by feet in height. It shifted, too, so that it was no shadow of a child but a man, with a football-shaped head but a broad chest and arms to match. The shadow did not follow Arnold's exact movements, either. When he turned around to look at Gerald, the shadow put its hands on its hips. Gerald waved his finger at the wall behind Arnold.

"Oh gosh, now there's two of them! Look out, Arnold!"

"At what?" asked Arnold whirling round to look at the wall. He saw nothing at all. Not even a shadow.

"They're right there in front of you!" Gerald gaped. A second, female figure now stood behind the first, appearing to lean against the source of the first shadow with familiarity. Phoebe gasped and covered her mouth.

"Gerald's right, Arnold! I see them!"

"See what?" Arnold queried. "Sorry, but I don't see anything."

"Helga," Phoebe said nervously. "What about you?" Helga blinked and looked at the wall. She moved a little closer to the pool of reflected water and squinted. She shrugged. The only strange thing to her was that her own shadow was completely absent, just like Arnold's.

"I'm sorry Phoebes, but I'm with Arnold on this one. I really don't see anyone." Only Gerald and Phoebe saw the two shadows give each other a "look" before they vanished and Arnold's regular shadow returned. So did Helga's.

"Ah, man!" Gerald groaned. "I knew it, man! This place is haunted!"

"Maybe we should get out of here?" Phoebe asked in a small voice. Arnold shrugged. He held out his hand to Helga and Helga took it, eagerly pressing nearer to the torchlight. Arnold passed his torch through the hole and was embraced by Stella and Miles on the other side of the hole. Helga followed, and made a show of inspecting her pink dress.

"Arnold! We were so worried about you! Son!" His parents fussed. Arnold reluctantly gave them a hug back. He was to deep in thought about the 'ghosts'.

"Helga?" He said snatching her hand again. "Stay close."


	8. Chapter 8

"There, now!" said Stella Shortman closing her medical kit. "Bandage's changed!" Arnold touched his arm gently. Then he closed his eyes and smiled. The pink ribbon Helga had used to bandage his arm with hadn't been on for long before his mother had replaced it with salve and a wrap. But Arnold had washed the blood out of it and kept it in his pocket all this time. It intertwined with the chain of the heart-shaped locket he had pledged to return to Helga when they were alone. Only it did not seem like they would have time for a long, private, intimate chat anytime soon.

Gerald, Phoebe, Miles Shortman, and his mother Stella Shortman all stood around in torchlight in the temple. His father, Miles had called for a break in their exploration of the temple. His parents had called these places a catacombs but mostly they were empty rooms. There was one place in particular, so far, that had contained the dead, but luckily they were shielded from view. Miles read pictograms from the temple's walls to explain.

"Normally, zigarots are not places of burial. They were built only for worship and to connect worshippers to the heavens. They were an observatory and a place for religious festivals. But according to this," said Miles pointing to the wall, "the war was going badly for them and none of their dead could no longer be buried at the mountain. So, the fallen defenders were all brought here and the bones entombed in stone."

The floor became one, single coffin made from blocks of stone of the same sort as the remainder of the temple. Arnold lifted his torch and frowned with heartfelt remorse. "That's just so sad," he muttered.

"It sure is, Football-Head," said Helga jabbing his nose with the one hand Arnold wasn't holding onto. "Now get that look off your face! The setting is already dismal as it is! With a look like that, we'll all start crying."

"I'm not crying, man," said Gerald wiping a tear from his eye. It seemed the tale of tragedy here had touched him deeply. They quickly hurried on.

A few minutes more revealed a second, makeshift burial chamber like the first but also a broad hallway. Arnold looked up in trepidation as it led them all back into the temple's 'throne-room'. Only now Miles and Stella were able to examine the stone couch there. Miles squinted at it, a curled hand under his chin. He tilted his head a little sideways.

"It's so damp here that everything covering this has rotted away," he spoke, wondering. "I see nothing written here to say that this is an alter but it is mighty close to it." Miles remained lost in thought.

"Should we leave the statue here?" asked Stella.

"Arnold?" His father spoke.

"Yeah?"

"Here, son, take this and put it on that stone bench over there."

"Um. Okay," said Arnold accepting the heavily wrapped stone statue. He walked slowly under its weight and slid it up onto the table. But at no time did he remove the wrapping from its face.

"Well," said Miles looking mildly pleased. He wrapped one arm around Stella. "Shall we go home?"

"That was anti-climatic," said Gerald as they all walked back to the surface. They all paused at the top of the stairway in case of jaguars. But as Stella, Miles, and the children looked all around, there was no sign of wild animals anyway except the birds. So they began a steady walk down the steps of the zigarot.

"Whew!" said Helga singing and breaking out into a skip for a few seconds. "Time to go home and catch up on Wrestlemania!" She paused at the edge of a terrace and folded her arms together.

"Yeah. I'm glad to get away from that creepy temple," said Arnold rubbing the back of his neck nervously. Now his biggest challenge was getting a moment alone with Helga to tell her how he felt about her.

Arnold jumped to his tiptoes when the fierce roar of jaguars sounded out again very near to them. The figure of a man came running out of the jungle. He swept a sword at the two jaguars and the two beasts crouched on the bridge in and out of the temple. With a dull roar, the two cats refused to budge, battering their large claws at the swordsman.

"La Sombra!" Miles Shortman muttered drawing a deep and fearful breath. He grasped Arnold with one arm and drew him close and Stella clung onto his shoulder. Arnold's heart leapt within his chest. Already, La Sombra had wounded him once on the arm and if he could, he would kill Helga and himself and his friends.

But the big cats did not move from the bridge and La Sombra retreated into the jungle once again.

"Perhaps," said Miles. "We should go through the back door."

They rambled through the garden with statues of beasts. A high wall barricaded them, but Arnold's parents removed climbing gear from their packs. Miles smiled.

"Let's see if I've still got it!" He declared throwing a grappling hook. It fell snug onto the stone above. If they could only climb that rope, they would all be able to walk along a broad ledge on higher ground. Phoebe, quick in mind, grasped the rope first to try. But she struggled a little at the unknown task and so Stella climbed behind the girl, pressing her higher from below. Then when the two females had gotten up the cliff, they looked down.

"Do you need help, Helga?" Miles asked the girl in pink. But Helga held out a hand to keep his aid at bay.

"Nah. Don't worry, I've got this. Thanks." Helga lept onto the rope and shimmied up it in mere moments. Arnold took hold of the waggling rope next.

"I'll be right up after you and Gerald, son," said Miles. Arnold nodded and hand over hand, foot over foot, hefted himself up the length of the rope. Gerald and Miles followed soon after.

"Whew!" They all said looking out across the cliff to the temple. The sun was beginning to lower in the distance.

"Let's get as far away from here as we can tonight," said Miles. They all nodded in agreement.

Together, they walked up the hill. There was a long but gentler slope leading down and they took this route down to a shallow river tributary. Miles took out his compass.

"We have to wade here," he announced gravely. Arnold stood on the shore banks and looked down at his shoes. Maybe he should untie them? They were all in the process of doing so or already wading when a hand flashed out of the jungle and hooked Arnold by the collar. Cruel steel curled around Arnold's neck.

"Give me the Corizon or he dies!" The river pirate said, making his return. Arnold froze.

As quickly as possible, they marched back to the temple they had left. The sun was beginning to set when La Sombra dragged Arnold all the way back to the room where they had left the Corizon. He dropped Arnold and took up the statue with one arm, holding his sword threateningly with the other. Then he vanished up the stairway, the cloak he was now wearing flapping.

"Ow," said Arnold rubbing his bruised backside.

"Oh, my baby," said Stella through tears as she snuggled him. Helga remained mute but shaken.

"Oh, Arnold!" Phoebe said as she and Gerald clustered around him. Helga walked up to him at last and linked her fingers with his. She did not say a word, only looked into Arnold's eyes.

"Helga I… I'm fine." Arnold managed to speak at last. It was then that the entrance to the staircase collapsed violently, dimming the already fading light.

"La Sombra!" Miles Shortman cursed.

"We're trapped!" Helga shrieked standing up on her toes, her hair on end.

"There's got to another way out of here," Arnold disagreed. He wandered the hall examining it.

Stella and Miles began their own search for an alternative way out. While their backs were turned, Arnold traced his hand along a symbol that had been strangely missing in the rest of the temple. It was a football shaped head with a single brow. As Arnold brushed it, the stone glowed green and cracked. There was a grating sound and part of the wall peeled away revealing the garden full of stone. Arnold and Helga walked carelessly into the night air, breathing in their freedom.

"You did it, Arnold!" Helga said smiling. They both paused in fright as a low growl sounded near at hand. On either side of Arnold and Helga was a jaguar. One of them walked two, enormous steps up to the boy and stared deep into his startled eyes. Then with a big-cat's baritone purr, it rubbed its head against Arnold's shirt. The other cat frightened Helga by giving her a lick before the two beasts wandered away.

"Eek!" Helga uttered as an afterthought. She tilted on her feet and fainted.


	9. Chapter 9

Helga's sudden collapse was a minor problem considering all they had been through. "Helga?" Arnold worried out loud before kneeling. He gathered the girl up into his arms and looked down on her face. When he was certain she had only fainted again, he ran the back of his finger gently across her face, then sighed softly in relief.

"Helga?!" said Phoebe with raw panic as she exited the temple to spy her fallen friend. Gerald's face, too, fell especially serious, but Arnold smiled reassuringly at them.

"Don't worry, Phoebe! She's only fainted. Helga saw… a wild animal. You know how see dislikes rats and things," Arnold explained. Glibly, he left out the part about the animal having been a jaguar. If he told them that, Phoebe and Gerald would just start to panic, too! And Arnold was convinced, now. The two beasts had not meant them any harm. Helga's eyes fluttered and she stirred. Arnold smiled and touched his forehead against hers for a moment, their bangs tangled for the briefest of time. But as Helga awakened Arnold gently helped her to sit upright. Helga was tensely silent, watching Arnold with wide eyes. Helga was still seated on the ground with Arnold's hands supporting her when Arnold's parents walked out of the temple.

"Oh my!" Stella strode forward, then knelt on the ground beside the girl. Helga blushed.

"I'm fine!" she declared. Arnold smiled softly and yanked Helga up to her feet by one hand as he flexed his arm upwards.

"Humph," Helga said of her helper. But her appreciative eyes remained on Arnold all the same. Helga then reached up and checked on her bow to make sure it was crisply tied in place.

"Whew!" she said stalking off a few paces into the jungle to cool her fervor for her favorite boy. But not too far, in case those giant cats came back.

"Sorry about that, Arnold. I.." Arnold's smile never left his face.

"Don't worry," he said. "Anybody would be scared of that."

"I wasn't scared!" Helga lied as boldly as she could. "Helga G. Pataki is fierce! She isn't scared of anything!"

"Whatever you say, Helga," said Arnold. His smile was smug and admiring. "But if anything scary does come out of the jungle again, I'll be sure to protect you." Helga froze. Arnold's bold words had paralyzed her. She did not dare to turn around. Instead, she held her breath until she could put her facade of indifference back up. Then she whirled around, her face blank of the deep love she felt.

"Well, I'm sorry to say our mission's a bust," said Helga sweeping out her hand. "Old Padro Goldman must really be obsessed with antiques."

"It's not an antique, Helga, it's a key," Arnold corrected. "Well, it is a 'divine artifact', too. But when La Sombra had me captured," said Arnold, remembering, "he told me that it would open the mountain so that he could get all the treasure inside. Tribute without measure! In the mountain!" Arnold recited. "But does that really mean there would be piles of gold and gems?"

"Piles of gold and gems?" said Helga perking up. "That's got my attention!"

"Um, um!" said Gerald speaking up. "If he's right about that and this turns into a treasure hunt, I'd be satisfied with even a small sack of gems."

"Gerald!" rebuked Arnold. "I think the important thing here is that we've lost a relic sacred to the Green-Eyed People. I don't think they'll be happy with us."

Arnold thought. His eyes widened. Because the temple they were currently standing on was built on level ground. It definitely was no mountain. So that meant the temple La Sombra had told him about was somewhere else in the jungle.

"Dad?" Arnold asked, suddenly uncertain. Miles Shortman tapped his chin in thought.

"Yes!" he said answering Arnold's unspoken question. "The ancient Green-Eyes probably did have another temple in the mountain. All of their usual burial sites for the dead are in steep mountains or hills. But according to the story of the Corizon, the king and queen both were lost to the Green-Eyes. So their people sculpted a statue to honor their spirits instead. That statue is the very one he stole!"

"So La Sombra could be right!" said Arnold casting a determined glare. "There could be centuries of tribute hidden in a temple!"

"Yes. But your mother and I have never seen it ourselves. And right now, I think your mother will agree that it is more important that we get you children to safety. That was dangerous enough. I was so afraid for you, son," said Miles laying a hand on Arnold's shoulder. "I'm so glad you're alright!" Stella nodded.

"We won't put you in danger like that again!" pledged Stella. But Arnold was too busy to listen properly. Something compelled him to reach down into his pocket to remove what was within. Helga's hair ribbon and the portrait locket of Arnold were both glowing a bright mystical green. Arnold's astonishment turned to shock when the two said objects lifted up and began to float in the air. They gave a lazy circle around the boy, then began to drift away at a walking pace.

"Eei!" said Gerald. "A ghost!" Gerald cried, because some force other than Arnold must be responsible. Phoebe gasped and covered her mouth. She huddled next to Gerald. But Helga had no time for cringing. She was too busy recoiling in shock that Arnold had pulled her locket with his picture in it from his pocket!

"Look!" said Arnold, pointing. For whatever reason, he could not stop himself. He felt drawn forward. He followed after the locket and ribbon as they drifted before him.

The glowing locket and ribbon paused beside an enormous, carved panel on of the exterior walls. The rusty head of a pick ax lay beside it and some of the script was lost. But Miles paused to read the inscription.

"The Jungle Queen will recline with her king. An act of love will restore great…. Humph. I can't read the rest of the inscription," said Miles tapping his chin as he kept on hand on his hip. But whatever the last word was, it would remain a mystery. Someone had chiseled it off long, long, ago. The glowing locket made an impatient loop through the air, then darted to the edge of the jungle. It paused by the entrance of a path.

"Look! It wants us to follow it!" said Arnold, pointing. Miles and Stella gave each other a look.

"Alright," they said reluctantly. They followed closely after Arnold as he jogged after the glowing locket, his own photo staring back at him all the while. As Arnold slowed down on the side of a slope, the locket paused midway across a gentle, but deep, stream. Arnold slogged after the locket without pause, but if he had, he might have looked down to see that his reflection in the water was not of himself. It was of a bronze-skinned man- a necklace of animal fangs against his bare-skinned chest and a red cloak against his back. A headdress obscured the face of his football-shaped head. The reflection in the water prowled after Arnold purposefully.

But Arnold had not seen the reflection. As the water was stirred up, neither did his parents as they followed after. Arnold and his parents emerged on the other side of the stream, followed by Gerald. A few steps into the water, Helga paused for Phoebe to catch up. She felt her friend grasp her arm suddenly with a gasp and her own eyes looked down to see what had startled Phoebe so much.

Down in the tranquil surface of the stream, Helga's reflection had become a woman with long, blond hair twisted into a braid down her back and white flowers tucked within. She had a unibrow as dense as Helga's but her face was lit by a tender smile instead of Helga's cruel frown. At seeing the reflection, Helga's frown intensified.

"Don't say anything, Phoebe!" said Helga. With Phoebe still clutching her arm, she marched through the remainder of the river's crossing. She shook her shoes, then emptied them as water poured off her onto the banks. The glowing ribbon and locket made a teasing loop above Helga's head before drifting back towards Arnold once again at the head of the trail.

They pressed on. The locket darted forward to make them jog several more times, but it always waited for them. The breathless group had gone a quarter mile when the locket paused at what appeared to be two blocks of stone barricading a narrow canyon. Two recessed holes at a height just above Arnold and Helga's heads had two matching handles hammered from pure gold hidden inside.

"Hm," said Stella patting the stone door. "There must be some way to open them!" But the locket became agitated again. It swooped above Arnold and Helga. Arnold and Helga both stared at one another, then shrugged.

"I'm game if you are, Football-Head," said Helga.

"Right," said Arnold with a smile. The two both stood on their tiptoes to reach the hidden handles. At their touch, the golden knobs spun and the gates before them opened. It allowed them passage through a small canyon, then out a small tunnel on the other side. Exiting, they could see a promising mountain in the distance. The glowing locket spun down into Arnold's outstretched palm and lost its glow.

A steep path zigzagged ahead of them. If they followed it, it would slide them all neatly onto the valley floor. It was irresistible.

"Let's go!" Miles Shortman said. He slid down first, followed by Stella. The children followed after, bouncing and stumbling down the hillside at an adventurous but manageable speed. They landed amid moss and tender weeds along yet another small stream. This one was so small, it did not even rise above their toes as they walked across. But there were ancient stepping stones across the stream just the same. And another mile marker! Miles regarded it.

"Hm," he said squinting in thought. "This way!" he announced, pointing.

From the first mile marker, they found a second, and beside it, an ancient vacant city. The walls of a civilization remained, but not much else. The homes had become square-shaped piles beneath the gnarled roots of trees. But some of the largest features of the town remained intact. There was a cistern. Fresh spring water trickled down a crack in the natural stone of a cliff into a round, ancient pool. Five rings of large stone blocks formed the perfectly symmetrical water basin. This tank of fresh caught water then split a little bit at a time over a glorious stone dam. Skirting the water-misted edges of the lower dam, Helga Pataki could not resist the allure of the tranquil water. The girl in the pink dress walked to the center of the footpath following the water's rim and leaned against one of the time-softened, engraved blocks someone had lain for a railing. As both of Helga's hands rested flat against the mist-cooled stone, she felt a warm hand lain atop one of her own.

"Helga?" asked Arnold softly. With startled eyes, Helga looked back at him, then smiled softly. Wordlessly, he was right. This was no time for wandering off by herself or sight-seeing. They were hunting for La Sombra.

"This is incredible," Miles Shortman said as they meandered through the ruins. Stella nodded in agreement, her eyes full of wonder.

Perhaps wandering through the misty ruins of an ancient civilization after a known criminal was not such a good idea. But many things Arnold did not expect had happened thus far. Arnold had not expected to become lost in the jungle during his school field trip. He also did not expect the locket to light green again. But Arnold had not fallen silent for long when the locket he held in his fist began to glow again. Startled, Arnold opened his palm so that the locket lay flat against it. But instead of flying off mysteriously as it had done before, the piece of jewelry merely blinked with its ghostly light momentarily before dimming. Curious, Arnold swiveled his wild-haired head to search around him. Rapidly, the keen-eyed boy spotted the familiar engraving of a football-shaped head with a unibrow chiseled against one of the seemingly solid rock walls. Only this time, a gust of wind whistled down through a long curtain of moss to part it. It revealed a stairway leading upwards where Arnold had presumed the cliff to be. The wind ruffled against Helga and Arnold, wiggling their hair before it fell eerily silent.

"Mom? Dad? We've found something!" Arnold called, drawing the attention to Stella and Miles. Careless, Arnold and Helga walked hand in hand up the staircase out onto a terrace of land. The ancients had carved a piece of the mountain down and built soil on it to make it flat. It contained no houses. Only an eerie litter of statues too weathered to stand.

La Sombra burst out from behind the fragments of one collapsed statue. Arnold and Helga clutched at one another, their hearts in their throats.

"You little pests!" the evil man snapped. Rapidly, he prowled towards them. But Gerald and Phoebe emerged at the top of the stairway moments after La Sombra revealed himself. After her first startled gasp, Phoebe narrowed her eyes with purpose.

"Everyone, get behind me!" she said drawing out the ancient Spanish steel sword she had found earlier. Phoebe boldly walked forward, stopping in front of Arnold and Helga to guard them from La Sombra and his cruel scimitar. Steadily, she held its tip out and one foot forward in a duelist's stance.

"Phoebe!" Helga exclaimed. She clasped her hands together against her chest. But Phoebe's own face was stern and unafraid.

"Arnold!" Phoebe commanded. "Take Helga away from here!"

"Phoebe!" Helga cried out in protest, but it seemed all her friends were against her. Even Arnold used all his strength to keep his guiding hand snug around her wrist so that she could not interfere with Phoebe's duel with La Sombra.

"Be careful, Phoebe," Arnold muttered as he struggled to keep Helga in his grip. "And thanks."

"Uh, what do I do?" asked Gerald as Helga and Arnold retreated a few steps behind them. Arnold wrapped Helga tight in his grip.

"Stay behind me!" Phoebe muttered to Gerald. She made sure her poise and balance were perfect before taking first strike at La Sombra, the river pirate. The black-stubbled pirate grit his teeth and swore, but Phoebe was both driven and skilled. She chopped like a blinding fury. La Sombra, meanwhile, was unbalanced because of the statue he struggled to hold in in one arm. In mere moments, Phoebe had disarmed her opponent and swooshed a cut into the brim of his hat for good measure.

La Sombra's face was dark with rage. His eyes were black-rimmed with madness and sleeplessness. But even he knew when to give in. Half-turned, he raged over his shoulder as he fled.

"You! Gringos! DO not you DARE try to follow me!" he spat just as Miles and Stella arrived on the terrace.

"You! La Sombra!" Miles said. He shook his fist with rage as the villain succeeded in escaping along a narrow trail.

"Are you alright?" Stella said kneeling beside Arnold.

"I'm fine, mom," the boy said. His eyes of concern were for Helga. After he had released her, Helga had flown to Phoebe. Now she was hugging Phoebe and crying at the same time.

"Oh Phoebe, you were so brave!" Helga sobbed in relief. "And I was so scared! You should have let me fight him instead!"

"Oh, please," said Phoebe leaning all her weight on her back toe out of modesty. "That is hardly logical. We both know I am a highly accomplished swordsman. And besides," Phoebe said her stern exterior breaking down into sentimentality as she lay a firm hand on Helga's shoulder as if she were a mother comforting a child.

"I have dried your tears too many times, Helga Pataki, for all that work to go to waste!" The two friends shared a touching hug. Gerald observed them, trying to work out what to say.

"Yeah, like she said! You were.. really brave!" the dark complexioned boy complimented. Phoebe picked up La Sombra's discarded sword. Now she had two swords for souvenirs!

"I wonder if I could get these through customs," Phoebe mused out loud. Gerald frowned.

"Ah, no?" he suggested to Phoebe.

As they had been speaking, La Sombra had been on the move. But the mountain terrace rested against the flank of the mountain. It crested the treetops just enough to have a clear view of everything below and much of what was above.

"Look!" said Arnold pointing. They could see La Sombra on a trail above them. The wrapped statue was held tightly in his grasp as he ran up a spiraling path on the mountain.

"Kids?" said Stella. Wild excitement had found its place in her voice. "Miles and I will go get the statue back from La Sombra. You all stay here where it's safe."

"I don't like it," said Arnold. "What if you don't come back for another ten years?"

"We'll be careful, son." But at this point, Arnold's parents were curious. They pressed onwards to tail La Sombra to the Lost Temple of the Green Eyes.

"Well, that's it then," said Helga kicking a pebble and sitting down on a mossy hunk of fallen statue. She pulled her feet up to rest them as she lent back, braced by her hands as she looked up at the sky. "Left behind again! Grownups have an inconstant way of doing things. First it's, 'come here' and then its 'stay there' and it's always 'I need some time alone', then 'where were you'? Sheesh. Can't they make their mind up?"

"They're just trying to protect us," Arnold murmured mildly, although he, too, resented being left behind.

"Yeah?" said Helga picking up a pebble and rolling it between her fingers. "Well, I say, stick together. The more the merrier! We're too easy to pick off. We're lost in the middle of the wilderness, for cripes sake! If they never come back, we'll starve to death or be eaten by wild animals! Plus there is that ghost."

"Ghost?" Arnold questioned. "I never saw any ghost, Helga."

"But Phoebe and Gerald did, goofwad, and now, I did, too. At the river. Plus there is something causing that… necklace," Helga said averting her eyes carefully, hoping Arnold had not figured out it was hers, "to fly! Necklaces don't just fly by themselves!"

"Yeah. Well, about that," said Arnold before explaining the legend of the Corizon King again.

"You heard what my father said. He was a king who lived a long time ago. But what La Sombra believes, is different. A long time ago, the Green Eyes worshipped a spirit, Quepunne-Za. He was the deity of fire, the magma of the earth, and the sun. Only he fell in love! He wanted the woman who loved him to be immortal, too. So he used magic, I guess, to bind her to the river and earth. But in doing so he upset the power over death. It started a whole war. In the end, Quepunne-Za journeyed to the underworld to get back his beloved's soul. But he lost his own body in the process. So the Green Eyes made a statue for him to live in."

"Now, none of that makes sense!" Gerald complained vocally holding out a hand. "How could he use magic? He must have been a ghost in the first place! Or maybe he is just a ghost right now."

"I don't know, Gerald," said Arnold in honesty. Phoebe adjusted her glasses on her nose, then spoke.

"That's just how these old legends work, Arnold. The truth gets twisted around as time passes. So much so, it's impossible to tell what was the original truth."

"Does it really matter?" asked Helga still admiring the sky. "Magical or not, a ghost is still a ghost, right? And it's pretty obvious what it wants! It wants its statue back!"

"I hope that's all it wants," Arnold fretted. "Maybe it wasn't such a good idea to run after it."

"Wow. You think?" Gerald commented. He rolled his eyes at his friend. It was a little late to come to that conclusion. Instead of going home, they had now headed deeper into the jungle than ever!

"Sorry, Gerald," Arnold said, ashamed of himself. "I guess I got a little carried away!" He flashed a smile before looking down at the ground. Now, all they could do was to wait. At least they weren't in the trees anymore. But Arnold kept a keen watch for any sign of his parents.

Elsewhere, Arnold's parents used Mile's whip to cross terrain and hurried to find La Sombra. But La Sombra had seen them out of the corner of his eye. He broke out into a full run and dove into the brush.

"Darn it!" said Stella. She whirled around but La Sombra had eluded them. The couple stood back to back in thought, searching. At that very moment a rope with a stout weight tied to one end was thrown them around them. Stella and Miles had failed to see the ambush coming. Instead, they fell to the ground as La Sombra tossed a second net over them. Dragging this along the ground, La Sombra dragged the two over to the steepening side of a hill and kicked them down it with his boot.

"You will never take the Corizon from me!" the pirate growled with a rusting voice.

"Oh no! Miles!" Stella gasped as they began to tumbled down the hill. The net snagged onto some branches but they still rolled on. Just as Arnold's parents tumbled over the edge of a cliff, Miles used his whip to snag onto a stout tree branch. They swung back and forth, still bound by the first rope.

The commotion of falling gravel caught Arnold's attention. He and all his friends gasped as they looked overhead at his parent's plight.

"Oh no!" Gerald exclaimed, pointing. "We've got to do something, Arnold! Here!" Quick thinking and clever, Gerald dug into his backpack and pulled out a familiar black utility belt.

"Here, Arnold!" Gerald repeated as he threw the belt into his friend's hand. "Go!"

"You kept yours?" Arnold spoke glancing down at the 'spy belt' in his hand. He and Gerald had got them on their mission to FTI.

"Is this time for talkin', or are you'all goin' to save your parents?"

"Right," said Arnold ripping it open. He had lost his grappling hook portion when he had used it at FTI. But Gerald had never used his. Arnold hoped it would work on a natural cliff just as well as it had worked on the side of a building.

But it would take forever to climb up. Instead, Arnold and his friends ran up the trail where his parents had encountered La Sombra. Fortunately, the villain had hurried on to the temple and its treasures. Arnold hooked the grappling hook onto the most promising bit of rock edge. Arnold yanked on the line with all his might to make sure it would hold his weight before he slid down it with a small camp knife held in his teeth. With this, he sawed through the rope holding his parents prisoner with one hand. Then, dropping the blade entirely to fall into the valley below, Arnold reached across and dragged his mother's hand to the rope he himself clung to.

"We've got it son! Thank you for saving us," said Miles holding onto the rope with one hand but keeping his weight on the line of the whip, for now. Arnold nodded and climbed back up the rope. When his mother had followed, Miles at last let go of the whip and made his way carefully up the rope. With a deep sigh of relief, Miles stood at the top of the cliff and carefully unwound the tip of his whip from the tree and put it back on his belt.

"That was really brave, son!" he said.

"Yes it was!" Stella declared. She swooped down to girl Arnold a hug. Miles joined her.

"Thanks," said Arnold awkwardly. "But La Sombra is getting away." His parents looked at him uneasily. They were undecided now. Whether to retreat. Or to follow.

But this high up the path, they could all see green smoke curling out into the sky. A giant stone door lay open.

"The Lost Temple of the Green Eyes!" Miles guessed as they all crept closer. Perhaps imprudently, they walked inside, listening carefully for any sign of their foe. What they heard but did not expect was swearing.

"Nothing! Nothing!" an angry voice declared. "All these years. All of this time! All my life! And there is nothing! No treasure! Not even a single ruby!" anger rumbled out from the mountain temple. La Sombra crouched among empty treasure chests in a temple, the wrapped statue by his side forgotten. When he heard the rolling of a pebble stirred by feet, he whipped around with a glare like the fury of a dragon. Then, upon seeing who stared at him in his defeat, the man began to laugh maniacally.


	10. Chapter 10

"The Lost Temple of the Green Eyes!" Miles guessed as they all crept closer. Perhaps imprudently, they walked inside, listening carefully for any sign of their foe. What they heard but did not expect was swearing.

"Nothing! Nothing!" an angry voice declared. "All these years. All of this time! All my life! And there is nothing! No treasure! Not even a single ruby!" anger rumbled out from the mountain temple. La Sombra crouched among empty treasure chests in a temple, the wrapped statue by his side forgotten. When he heard the rolling of a pebble stirred by feet, he whipped around with a glare like the fury of a dragon. Then, upon seeing who stared at him in his defeat, the man began to laugh maniacally.

"So, you have come here to mock me, eh?" said the man, thick with accent. His fury found two small boys the perfect target, and La Sombra rushed forward to grasp both boys in a savage headlock. But Arnold and Gerald both nodded, then heaving their muscles, the twelve year old boys tossed La Sombra over their shoulders by ducking down and heaving the weight as it shifted. La Sobra went flying out onto the ground. Moments later, Miles Shortman dropped a blow to La Sombra's head and the pirate went down. Then, stumbling upright again, La Sombra backed away only to find himself tripped by Helga's extended leg.

"Why, you!" La Sombra sputtered out. The man staggered upright and lurched menacingly towards Helga. But then, with a resounding wallop, none other than Arnold Shortman decked La Sombra with a karate punch and knocked him out cold.

"Nobody touches my gal!" Arnold said quoting the singer, Dino Spumoni. He turned to Helga with a smile. "Right, Helga?"

"Yeah!" said Helga said shaking her fist at the unconscious pirate. "My man here kicked your butt!"

"If I've told 'um once, I've told them a million times!" said Gerald fussing with his head. "Don't mess with the hair!" Arnold and Helga smiled. Gerald was angry. But he calmed down a little when Phoebe leaned up on tiptoe and gave his cheek a kiss. Gerald's eyes gave a little pop in surprise, instead.

"Well, I guess that's over," Arnold said, hoping. He moved to grab the statue from the temple floor where La Sombra had left it. But as Arnold grabbed it, the statue seemed mysteriously light. Arnold's eyes grew wide as it dragged him over next to Helga.

"Helga!" Arnold gasped. "Don't touch it!"

But it was too late. Helga had also grasped hold of the mysterious stone on the other side, and like a runaway horse, the statue dragged both Arnold and Helga over the edge of the cliff. They could hear their companions cries as they tumbled from view, but they themselves paused mid-fall. Frozen in the air for a moment, Arnold and Helga gawked at the mysterious green light that held them both airborn along with the statue. Then, the green light fading, they landed gently in a muddy stream cascading down the mountainside. Slick with mud, the slide wove down underground through a generous-sized tunnel. An entire flock of swans flew out of the way, honking, as Arnold and Helga came to the foot of yet another mysterious temple, this one hidden inside the earth itself.

Dripping wet, Arnold stood up. He clasped his hands with Helga's, the statue that had brought them here resting in the shallows behind them. How could they not stare! The temple had dozens of carved stone pillars and wall murals which looked suspiciously like Arnold. Still hand in hand, Arnold and Helga walked forward to get a better look at the lavishly decorated temple.

"Oh how poetic!" said Helga dreamily. "Finally a temple worthy enough to shrine the all-encompassing glory of the most divine of adolescent loves!"

"Helga," said Arnold more practically. "Come here. I think this is where the statue is supposed to go. See?" He pointed.

"Oh, not that statue again!" said Helga, resting her hand on her hip, half-turned and pigtail jaunty. "That thing nearly got us killed!"

"Yeah, but we made a promise to the Green-Eyes," said Arnold thinking of his parents. He reached down into the water to grasp hold of the stone statue. It was heavy again, so being thoughtful for once, Helga reached down and helped Arnold to carry it from the other side further into the temple. They perched it in a likely place and boldly, Arnold whipped off the sheet the statue had been wrapped in. Arnold and Helga both stared at the sparkling statue, captivated by its ghostly green glow.

"Wow," Helga said, blinking.

"Yeah," Arnold agreed with her. The statue looked a lot like him!

"Well, there's only one thing to do. I can't stop staring at the thing," Helga announced loudly. She threw a sheet over the statue! Then she surprised Arnold by posing with swagger. "The real thing looks better in person, anyway."

"Thanks," said Arnold with a manly smile.

"Well, let's look for a way out of here."

"Hey, look, there's an exit!" Arnold cried in the next moment. He had spied a set of enormous stone doors. Arnold and Helga both pushed and pulled at them to no avail. Then Helga rolled her eyes.

"It's sealed from the outside or somethin'. It's not going to open, Arnold!" Helga concluded with unusual patience.

"Well, we'll just have to try to climb up through that hole," said Arnold. He wiped his head, then pointed to a round hole in the rock wall with daylight streaming through it. It was easily big enough for a child to fit through. "For now, let's take a break." Arnold looked down at himself. There were gashes in all his clothes from all their adventuring. So they both sat down on a broad stone bench, dappled in sunlight from the window.

"Rock, eh? Not very comfortable," complained Helga.

"Hm, here, use this as a pillow!" said Arnold picking up a bit of woven mat. He examined it carefully, then cast his eyes around the room. "Hm, there is a lot of stuff lying around for an ancient temple!" he declared with confusion.

It was true. Besides mats, there were pots filled with feathers or canes of wood stacked around corners. A rack of poles was covered with garments of clothing. Arnold jumped down from his perch on the couch and plucked one of the odd capes off the poles. It was a cape dyed a vivid red. It matched the red parrot feathers Arnold had tied into his hair on the day they had attacked La Sombra on his boat. Like fate, as Arnold searched, there was a little cap headdress to go with it with more of the same kind of feathers. On a whim, he perched it on his head between his tufts of hair. Then he tied the cape around his shoulders.

"Oh, wow! Good find, there, Arnoldo!" declared Helga grasping hold of an article of clothing, herself. She had found a cape a shade of violet to match her pink dress. To go with it, Helga snatched up an enormous headdress that covered her head like a crown but made from feather of pink, purple, and black. Arnold and Helga smiled at one another in their strange attire. Then Helga went to admire herself in the water's reflection.

"Hm, not bad."

After this brief breather, the two tried to climb up to the window but it was not working. Arnold sighed deeply.

"Rats. This isn't going to be as easy as I thought. We need a ladder or something."

"Tell me about it," said Helga. She rolled her eyes.

"Well, since we're stuck here for the moment, Helga, let's talk."

"Talk? Talk about what?"

"About this," said Arnold pulling the locket free from the pocket of his blue jeans. "About us! So all this time...the book of poetry, the chalk graffiti, the lost parrot, the mysteriously vanishing locket was all you?" Helga jumped up into air about a foot, but then recovered enough to turn her back on Arnold.

"Pretty much, hair-boy."

"And that time you came through my couch to steal our answering machine tape? Don't forget that happened. What on earth could be so embarassing that you'd have to sneak into my house to do that?"

"Oh, I don't know, Arnoldo," spit Helga. "I guess you've pretty much said it yourself. One time you told me. We were in the park and you were talking about LILA. But you said how much it hurts when someone you really like doesn't like you back. I mean, like-you, like-you. I know how that feels. I don't want you to not like-me, like-me. I don't want to hear you say, I can't be loved. Of course I'm hiding my feelings deep down, because at the end of the day I'm Helga G. Pataki, that frankly annoying girl who likes sports and isn't who isn't smart and pretty and feminine and funny in all the ways the girls you ga-ga over are!"

"Helga, that's just what you-think, I-think about you," said Arnold. "It's not like you've asked me for my opinion."

"Then what do you think about me, Hair-boy?" said Helga. "Never mind. I don't want to know."

"I think you do," said Arnold. "I think you're smart and funny. I like the fact that you're good at sports and pretty much I'm always glad to have you on my team. I haven't seen you dress up much but when you do… you're amazing and everyday you wear this bow ribbon that's just… cute."

"Cute?"

"Cute," repeated Arnold. "It's just that all this romance stuff isn't easy," said Arnold scratching behind his neck nervously. "When you first told me you loved me, I didn't really know what to say. I still don't know how to respond actually. This is kind of a big deal."

"Oh" said Helga. She and Arnold both looked away from one another shiftily. They both blushed an equal crimson. Then, Arnold slowly reached out a hand. He grasped Helga's soft palm in his own and held it, fast.

"But I do know one thing," the boy said as their eyes locked again. "I'd like for us to try. I care about you, Helga. I can't imagine another girl I'd rather be with more."

"Oh!" said Helga with surprise. But her surprise turned to shock as Arnold paused to gaze tenderly into her eyes, searching for the soul there. Then, pulling himself forward and his lips up, Arnold crushed his lips against Helga's in a deep and satisfying, yet uniquely tender kiss. Helga's eyes grew wide with shock before she melted into the kiss.

Helga's eyes closed. As Arnold and Helga embraced, butterflies rose up into the air around them. A warm wind spun around them. It cast the clothes they wore into a flutter but Arnold did not lessen his embrace. He deepened the kiss as the dropped ribbon from Helga's hair and her broken locket went spinning up over heads with the wind, then out the window of the temple.

Above the temple, in the jungle beyond, the warm wind that surrounded Arnold and Helga continued to spiral. Birds and butterflies filled it like rain, spiraling out across the jungle in all directions. A bird flew off with Helga's locket, the picture within clasped within its grasp. From outside, the gust could even be heard, like a whirr. Far way in the distance, one of the Green-Eyes pointed and smiled at the bright blue, butterfly-filled sky. But inside the temple, Helga was still enjoying her kiss.

"Wow!" said Helga as Arnold released her from his kiss.

"Yeah," Arnold agreed with satisfaction, still holding Helga's hand gently.

"You! I!" Helga muttered anxiously. She twitched and almost pulled free of Arnold's grasp on reflex. But the boy wrapped his arms around her and kissed her forehead instead.

"Shhh!" he said resting his arms around Helga until her tense muscles grew soft and she relaxed into his hold, a giddy smile on her face.

Meanwhile, Arnold's parents and friends did not know that Arnold and Helga were alright. Better than alright, actually! They gasped at the top of the cliff as Arnold and Helga fell from sight into a leafy gorge. Phoebe and Stella began to weep. Then, hurrying back down the mountain path, Miles slashed a path through the dense jungle underbrush to get to the place where Arnold and Helga fell. As they worked so hard to find Arnold and Helga, or at least their fate, a magic wind lifted birds and butterflies without measure to fill the jungle with them. Overhead, ribbons of living things seemed to stream from one place! These swirled out from the temple where Arnold and Helga now kissed. A couple of minutes after the stream of birds and butterflies had abated, Miles Shortman succeeded in clearing a pathway to reveal broad steps and the exterior to a stone temple. Miles read the engravings.

"Look, the text is intact. The missing words from the text are here! A sacrifice of love will restore health, and the jungle queen will recline with her king to guide and guard all of nature's creation. Hm," said Miles scratching under his explorer's hat. Stella pressed anxiously at his back as they continued to look for their missing son. Their ears perked when they heard laughter and the sound of voices echoing from within the temple. Then, together, Miles and Stella forced open the temple doors. They and Gerald and Phoebe walked inside the lavishly-Arnold temple to see sunlight streaming onto Arnold and Helga seated on the couch, still dressed up in the capes and headdresses they had found.

"A ghost!" squeaked Gerald.

"Relax, Gerald. It's only me," Arnold said calmly. Gerald gaped at the headdress. Then his gaze shifted and he gaped at the way Arnold and Helga tenderly held hands.

"I don't believe it!" the boy muttered. Gerald rubbed his eyes. Giggling at Gerald's expense, Helga turned toward Arnold with a broad and beautiful smile. Just then, Helga's friend Phoebe rushed up to clasp Helga's other hand.

"Oh, wow, Helga! What a costume!" spouted Phoebe. "These clothes are exact replications of the jungle queen's, as detailed by these exotic, fantastic ruins!"

"Jungle Queen?" said Arnold with an eyebrow lifted. "Sounds about right. Helga would kill me if I ever married someone else."

"That's right, Football-Head!" Helga declared. She tugged Arnold closer with his shirt front for a quick but sweet kiss on the cheek. His parents were watching after all.

"Arnold. You gotta be kidding me. You and Helga Pataki?"

"Come on, Gerald," said Arnold with manly swagger for one so young. "You know it's not the first time we've kissed."

"Damn right, Football-Head," said Helga with a sly smile.

"Ah, well, Casanova," Gerald sighed in defeat. "It's just as well that you settle down from your wild and willful bachelorhood, anyway."

"Thanks, Gerald," said Arnold, irritated by his friend's remarks. Helga's eyebrows folded angrily.

It was time they left the the temple. Still holding Helga's hand in his own, Arnold walked between his parents and friends towards civilization. They left the temple for the bright sunlight of the jungle. Meanwhile, behind them, a dozen of the Green-Eyed people snuck by carrying an enormous statue of Helga into the temple. But no one in Arnold's group noticed the oddity. Instead, they made their way back to river. Stella pointed and as they followed the river down its course, a helicopter flew overhead. Excited, Stella and Miles followed it to a clearing. It was finally Edwardo here to give them a ride. Arnold's parents addressed their old friend.

Still holding hands, Arnold and Helga climbed into the helicopter, along with Phoebe and Gerald. With a noisy whirr, their helicopter flew off. Meanwhile, in the jungle below, Helga's tangled, pink hair-ribbon and her broken locket lay on the ground, seemingly forgotten. But no, a hand reached down. A member of the Green-Eye Tribe held the two objects up in reverence.

Edwardo took Arnold and his friends back to civilization, then back to the hotel where Arnold's class was staying. The restaurant had been largely vacated by all but the school kids, where Principal Wartz counted and recounted the class. Mr. Simmons stood about with an unhappy frown on his face. But then he looked up in shock and joy as his four missing students waved to him across the room

"Mr. Simmons!" called Gerald. Arnold was still too busy holding Helga's hand to talk much. The two continued to smile like honeymooners.

"Oh my gosh!" gushed Mr. Simmons. "Gerald! Arnold! Helga! Phoebe! I'm so glad you're back kids!" Mr. Simmons shook Gerald's hand, impressed by their cleverness in making it back from the jungle. Then the school teacher looked up at Stella and Miles.

"And who is this?" said their school teacher, puzzled. Arnold drew himself up proudly.

"My parents!" he declared just as Grandpa Phil and Grandma Pookie hobbled across the room.

"I'm astonished at you, Arnold!" Grandpa scolded. "Lying about where you were and why you were going! Pookie and I had already been prepared for the worst kind of news! Ya could have been killed, boy! I'm so glad you're back!" Phil leaned down and gave Arnold a hug. Then he looked up. Wordless, he studied Miles standing before him. He scratched his chin.

"Now, either you're a ghost or I'm dreaming or…" said Phil leaving off his words. Miles Shortman answered them.

"I'm your son!" Miles finished in the gap. Phil beamed.

"Ah, come here, boy!" Phil said hugging Miles tight. He slapped Miles on the back a few times then let go to have a good look at him.

"Your wife, too! Holy, Moley boy what happened to you! You felt like dumping your son on me or something?"

"We'll tell you all about it, Dad," Miles promised. Meanwhile the other school kids had caught sight of Arnold and Helga.

"Arnold! Helga! I just don't believe it! Look, you guys!" said Rhonda waving across the room.

"Hey, it's Helga and Arnold!" Harold shouted, too, as he ran nearer. Soon, they were surrounded by their fellow classmates.

"Oh my gosh!" gushed Rhonda. "We were so worried!" She looked down at Arnold and Helga's hands and grinned.

"Oooo!" said Rhonda, beaming. "So I guess you two have decided to make it official then?" Arnold smiled at Helga.

"Something like that," he answered. Helga stood beside Arnold as Rhonda and Gerald whispered, then rushed away on some errand.

"I guess La Sombra was wrong," said Arnold. "There wasn't any treasure in the temple." But Helga gave Arnold a wink.

"Oh, I wouldn't say that!" she said pulling a gold necklace from her dress front. She flashed it discretely before tucking it back inside. On the necklace was an enormous gemstone! "We might want to go back there someday!" Arnold was so surprised he bounced on his toes. Meanwhile, Grandpa Phil continued to speak with Miles and Stella. Miles looked across the room.

"Look at him!" lamented Miles. "So grown-up! I wish I could have been there for him." Phil put a hand on Mile's shoulder.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about Arnold!" said Phil. "There's more man in that kid, than boy! I'm not worried about the son I've been raising for the past twelve years. I'm worried about the one I haven't seen for eleven... long…. years!" Phil clasped Mile's hand in a shake.

Just then, music began to play inside the broad open space of the restaurant. Arnold swiveled his head to see Brainy on the D.J., Gerald snapping his fingers alongside.

"Brainy?" said Helga squinting her eyes. "How did he? I thought he was…. Oh well, I guess it doesn't matter." She shrugged.

"Come on! Dance!" said Rhonda. Both she and Phoebe pushed Helga out onto the dance floor. Arnold and Gerald joined them. Soon, all of the P.S. 118 kids were dancing, too! Pressed in together against the crowd, Arnold and Helga found each other again. Arnold took her hand with a kiss.

"Dance with me?" Arnold asked.

"Of course! Boyfriend!" said Helga fluttering her eyes before smacking a sweet kiss on his cheek. Arnold grinned. Then they danced the day away. Years later, Arnold and Helga got married in Hillwood. The sound of "Hey Arnold!" still echoed across the neighborhood, spoken by a dozen voices. But to Arnold, none was so sweet as that of Helga's call. The end.


End file.
